NC and NC Actions exchange

Owned by D.Pachula
Last updated: 19.Apr.2021
4 min read

This article explains the NC management workflow concept designed for IATF CARA. Apart from ensuring standardized reports and adding business logic checks for the report creation IATF CARA supports a software based completion of NC Actions.

This enables IATF CARA to offer support for entering that data by the organization while avoiding changes on NC management reports created in Excel. Additionally all data is still available in raw form for analytics.

IATF CARA offers a special version called IATF NC CARA which focuses only on the NC management report and the functionalities the organization needs to complete it.

  • IATF CARA (cara.iatfglobaloversight.org)

    • IATF CARA for CBs and Auditors for creating and managing reports

    • NC management reports are directly linked to a report which they belong to

    • NC management reports can be exported on their own for Organizations

    • Offers the possibility to import NC CARA Management reports send by the organization

    • All NCs can be managed separately and also exported and imorted seperately

  • IATF NC CARA(nc-cara.iatfglobaloversight.org)

    • IATF NC CARA for Organizations enables the import of NC management reports send by auditors

    • Multiple NC management reports can be managed

    • All NCs can be managed separately and send to different branches of the company

    • Separate reports can be joined before sending back to auditor or send separately

The “Load customer NC management” function will only attach the clients NC responses to existing NCs in the original audit report. This makes sure that no manipulation of data is possible. The matching to the NCs is made based on the id each NC has received. This id can be checked using the “I-Button” next to each NC. If the NC is missing the clients answer won’t be attached.

If you want to check the clients response you can use nc-cara.iatfglobaloversight.org to load the response and check the responses.

If your original report is missing the NCs you send to the client the “Load customer NC management” function will run successfully but won’t be able to attache responses to missing NCs. To restore the data to the situation the NC management report was generated the report send to the client has to be loaded. Please follow these steps:

  1. Use “Load Report/Backup” to load the NC Management report with the NCs you send to your client.

  2. Use the “Load customer NC management” function to load the responses

Interaction between auditor and organization

The Diagramm above shows the interaction and the data structure for NC management process. The NC management report consists of a header and a list of NCs (NC Actions). The NC Actions part is split into three parts the CB-Auditor part, the Organization data part and the Cb data part. Each part can only be completed by the responsible person for that part. IATF NC CARA is used to complete the organization part for the NC Actions all other data can’t be changed.

  1. The NC management report is created by the auditor who completes all data including the CB auditor part for all NC actions.

  2. After completing the NC management report he can use the “Save NCs for organization” button” or “Save report” both functions will create an NC management report file. The “Save NCs for organization” function will help with an additional instruction.

  3. After completing the NC management report he sends the report to the organization including the link to IATF NC CARA. The send process is not part of the IATF CARA Tool and can be done using E-Mail or Cloud Storage etc.

  4. After receiving the link and the NC management report the organization can load/import the received report into IATF NC CARA.

  5. Now the report is available for entries within the organization. Separate NCs from the NC management report can be as well saved/exported and passed on to other departments. IATF NC CARA will be always able to load/import that report and joing the NCs. The only fields which can be changed are limited the organization part of the NC actions all other fields are blocked for changes.

  6. After the organization has completed the organization part for NC actions. The report is saved/exported and send back to the auditor. All data will be part of the report including attached files (which are limited to pdf and jpeg for security reasons)

  7. After receiving the NC management report the auditor can import the NC management report back to IATF CARA using the “Import customer NC management report”. The Cara Tool will automatically find the right NC Mangement report and replace the data. If the report is missing from IATF CARA it has to be loaded/imported back. Using the “Load customer NC management” functionality limits the imported data to the organization part of NC Actions. This will avoid any manipulation of auditor data by the organization.

This process can be repeated as often as required if the auditor rejects the NC actions provided by the organization. On each report the old organization data is replaced by the new data provided by the organization. If the organization data is imported a second time the old data is kept if changes were made so the auditor can check the made changes.

This process can be also done for NCs on their own. Next to each NC a download button is also available. Using this button it is possible to save only a single NC. The above explained logic in the data exchange between the auditor and organization is still working. The NCs can be send separately to the auditor or joined before sending them back.