Have you ever noticed that some of the discussions on Quality forums resemble a tennis match?  Each participant will go back and forth debating a question from a theoretical point of view as opposed to a practical approach and never really answer the question? This can go on for days, even months.  I’ve often thought this is why Quality sometimes gets a bad reputation, because in a manufacturing environment you don’t have all the time in the world to debate what approach Deming vs. Crosby would have taken.

I recently came across a debate regarding which root cause analysis tool is THE best when working on Corrective Actions.  From an auditors perspective, the tool is irrelevant.  What is relevant is the thoroughness of your investigation and the effectiveness of your corrective action (i.e. the nonconforming event was corrected and has not reoccurred since).  That’s it, plain and simple!