**Nonconformities defined: Using Quality Workbench Professional**

While "nonconformities" in general represent defects or failures in a system, customers in a variety of industries use this term to apply to a wide range of situations, from uncontrolled releases into environmental systems to injuries that result from on-the-job accidents.

Nonconformities in a food processing operation, for example, may represent too much or too little of something: chocolate chips in ice cream, cans that are improperly sealed, or incorrect fill weights. In health care, recording nonconformities such as missed appointments, delayed prescriptions, or recording errors on patient records provide useful information for future improvement.

Regardless of the way in which nonconformities may be defined in a specific industry, the nonconformities module of Quality Workbench Professional supports organizations' need to control activities with associated corrective actions. Whether the action is short or long term, Quality Workbench creates a record of critical business issues. Since Quality Workbench offers the ability to customize terminology, a customer can set unlimited numbers of corrective action types, define various levels of severity, and specify sources of nonconformities.

Of course, recording nonconformities alone is not enough; appropriate personnel must take follow-up action. The software program assures that only relevant personnel are notified about each event, since an administrator can specify who should be informed, the method of communication, and whether the event should be added to the users' task list.

The nonconformities module, like other Quality Workbench modules, provides a comprehensive audit trail throughout the processing cycle of a nonconformity.

For more information about Quality Workbench and how it can support your quality system, go to http://www.pqsystems.com