Raised at the machine
On a phone or a tablet, by the person who found it, while the part is still in their hand. Photograph attached, job and part number picked from a list rather than typed and an NCR number issued on the spot.
NCR and corrective action tracking · UK manufacturing
NCR tracking that lives on the shop floor, not in somebody's inbox.
Raise a non-conformance on a phone at the machine, with a photograph attached. Chase it without sending a single email. Close it out with evidence against it. Find any NCR from any year in the time it takes an auditor to finish asking for it.
The product is called RootLog. It is built to your process rather than bought off a shelf, because the firms who need this most are usually the ones whose process does not match anybody's template.
From £1,950
Two weeks
No per-user fees
You own it
The symptoms
What an NCR system usually looks like before anyone fixes it
None of this means the system was built badly. It means it was built for ten NCRs a year and is now carrying two hundred.
- The pad of forms is in the office and the problem is on the shop floorSo the operator finishes the shift, remembers on Thursday and writes it up from memory. Half of what mattered has gone by then and some of it never gets raised at all.
- The register is a workbook nobody can have open at the same timeSomeone has it locked for editing. Someone else keeps a copy on their desktop and merges it later, mostly. The version on the server is not always the newest one.
- Chasing is done by email, so the trail is in four inboxesThe evidence of what was agreed is spread across a chain that only two people can see and one of them is on holiday. When the record is finally written up, it is a summary of what somebody remembers the emails said.
- Nothing prompts anybodyAn NCR sits waiting on a signature for three weeks because there is no mechanism that makes waiting visible. It gets noticed when someone happens to scroll past it, or when a customer asks.
- Closed does not always mean closedRows marked closed with the action column blank. Corrective actions with no owner. Due dates that passed in March. Nobody is being careless; there is simply nothing stopping a record being closed before it is finished.
- Audit week is a search operationTwo days of finding paperwork, cross-referencing a spreadsheet against a lever-arch file and hoping the photographs are still on somebody's phone.
The tell that it has outgrown itself
If your quality manager can tell you roughly how many NCRs are open but not exactly which ones, or if the answer to "when did we last review that corrective action" is a search rather than a screen, the system is being held together by one person's memory. That works right up until that person is off for a fortnight.
The cost nobody adds up
The paperwork is usually more expensive than the scrap
Most firms can tell you what they scrapped last month. Very few can tell you what it cost to administer the scrapping: raising the report, walking it round for signatures, chasing the disposition, writing up the corrective action, preparing it all again for the audit.
That time is real, it is paid at a loaded labour rate and it lands on your most experienced people rather than your cheapest. An NCR that takes an hour and a half of somebody's day, ninety times a year, is a fortnight of a senior person gone before you count a single scrapped part.
I have not published a benchmark figure for this, because I have not verified one I would stand behind. What I have built instead is a calculator that uses your own numbers.
Work out your own cost of poor quality. Free, no sign-up, nothing leaves your browser. It shows the quality admin figure separately, which is the one this page is about.
In use
Raise it where you found it, close it with evidence
Four stages, each one a screen rather than a form to walk somewhere.
Contained and dispositioned
What happened to the affected product: scrap, rework, concession, return to supplier, use as is. Quantity recorded, decision attributed to a named person, dated automatically rather than by hand.
Action assigned and chased by the system
Where a corrective action is warranted, it gets an owner, a due date and its own status. What is outstanding and who it is sitting with is a screen anybody can look at, so chasing stops being a person's job.
Closed out on evidence
Closure requires the fields that make it a closure: what was done, by whom, what proved it worked. Everything before it stays in the record, so the history of a decision survives the person who made it.
And the things that only matter once you have a few hundred of them
- Search that finds one record in seconds. By NCR number, part, customer, supplier, date range, operator or cause. This is the feature that changes audit week.
- An audit trail that cannot be quietly edited. Who changed what and when. Not because anybody is dishonest, but because being able to prove it is the point of the record.
- Trends you can actually see. Same defect, same machine, same supplier, same customer. Obvious on a screen, invisible in a spreadsheet of four hundred rows.
- Exports to a spreadsheet. Every screen. Your customer wants it in their format, your auditor wants a printout, somebody wants to pivot it. The data never stops being yours.
- Supplier non-conformances kept separate. Raised against a supplier rather than a job, with their response held in the same record.
- Works without training. If somebody can use a website, they can raise an NCR. That is what makes the difference between a system used properly and one used when there is time.
ISO 9001 and customer requirements
What the standard asks for, stated carefully
Two clauses of ISO 9001:2015 sit behind most NCR paperwork. Clause 8.7 covers the control of non-conforming outputs: identifying them, dealing with the affected product and keeping records of what was found, what was decided and who authorised it. Clause 10.2 covers non-conformity and corrective action: reacting to it, evaluating whether the cause needs eliminating, acting, reviewing whether the action worked and retaining records of both the nature of the problem and the results.
Nothing in either clause requires software. A paper system that is filled in properly and can be produced on request is compliant. What software changes is how much effort it takes to keep it that way and how confident you are that it is that way today rather than on the day you last checked.
The 2026 revision and what is actually known about it
A revised ISO 9001 is scheduled for publication on 16 September 2026. Based on the draft stages, it is an evolution rather than a rewrite: the process approach, Plan-Do-Check-Act and risk-based thinking all stay, with added emphasis on quality culture and ethical behaviour. A three-year transition period is anticipated, which would run to roughly September 2029 and certification to ISO 9001:2015 remains valid throughout.
Two honest caveats. Until it is published, nobody can tell you exactly what the final text says and anyone who does is guessing. And the transition arrangements are confirmed by accreditation bodies at or around publication, not before. If you are being sold software on the strength of the 2026 revision, ask which specific requirement it addresses. ISO's own committee page is the source worth watching. Checked on 29 August 2026.
Beyond the standard, most of the pressure comes from customers rather than certification bodies. Aerospace and automotive supply chains commonly ask for a structured problem-solving response in a set format and to a set timescale. Where you have to produce that, the value of a proper record is that the information already exists in one place instead of being reassembled from an email chain the week it is due.
Where the line is
What this is not, said now rather than halfway through
None of it is off the table. It is simply more work, so it costs more and takes longer and you should hear that before you spend anything.
It is not a compliance guarantee
Software cannot make a quality system compliant and I will not tell you it can. It holds better records and makes them easier to produce. Whether your process meets the standard is a matter for you and your auditor.
It is not a full QMS on day one
Version one does NCRs and corrective actions properly rather than doing eight things adequately. Document control, calibration, supplier approval and internal audit can be built, but as later phases with their own quotes.
It does not fix your process
If NCRs are not being raised because nobody wants to raise them, a better form will not change that. It removes the practical excuses. The cultural ones are yours.
It is not an ERP integration as standard
As built it exports files you can import elsewhere. Having it push and pull data from your ERP or MRP automatically is a separate phase, quoted separately and worth doing only once the first part is earning its keep.
What it costs
From £1,950 and why it says "from"
A four-field NCR log with two people using it is not a system with supplier non-conformances, customer complaint links, three sign-off levels and a structured problem-solving workflow behind it. Quoting one price for both would mean either promising a number I cannot build to, or charging the simple jobs to cover the hard ones.
So the blueprint comes first and it is free. You get the real figure in writing before you commit anything and that figure is fixed once you accept it. It does not move because the work turned out harder than I expected.
Quotes hold for 30 days. The only thing that changes a fixed price is finding that what I received is materially different from what was described. In that case I either requote, which you are free to decline, or withdraw and refund your deposit in full.
What you own at the end. The application, the code and the data, with no licence and no per-user fee. A full export is free on request whenever you ask, whether or not you are paying for support. Ongoing support is optional at £750 a year or £75 a month and the first 30 days are included.
Have a go on a working inspection example. It is live, with made-up data and there is nothing to sign up for.
Who you would be dealing with
An inspector who got tired of the paperwork
My trade is quality inspection, twenty years of it, most recently on aerospace engine components. I have raised non-conformances, chased them and sat on the wrong side of an audit looking for a record that existed but could not be found. That is where this comes from.
It means I do not need the process explained from first principles. Containment against corrective action, disposition against root cause, why the effectiveness check is the part everyone skips. That is familiar ground and it shortens the conversation considerably.
There is no team, no account manager and nobody in a call centre. You email me, I answer, I build it. Which is also why I take on a few of these at a time and will tell you early if yours is not a good fit.
Questions
The ones I get asked
What is an NCR?
A non-conformance report. It is the record you raise when something does not meet requirement: a part out of tolerance, wrong material, a missed process step, a customer rejection.
It records what was found, what was done about the affected product and where necessary what was done about the cause. Some firms call it a non-conformity report or a defect report. The paperwork is the same argument under a different name.
Is this off-the-shelf software?
No. It is built to your process, your NCR number format, your disposition options and your sign-off rules.
Off-the-shelf quality software exists and is a reasonable choice for some firms. It usually means changing how you work to suit it and paying per user every month for as long as you use it. If your process is standard, that trade is often worth making and I will say so.
How is it different from our NCR spreadsheet?
The spreadsheet is fine at holding a list and for a small number of records a year it is genuinely the right tool.
What it cannot do is be opened at the machine by the person who found the problem, stop two people overwriting each other, make waiting visible so things get chased, hold a photograph of the defect against the record, or prove that a closed record was not quietly edited afterwards.
Can we attach photographs?
Yes and it is one of the main reasons for raising an NCR from a phone. A photograph taken at the machine, at the moment the problem is found, is worth more in a root cause discussion than a description typed from memory two days later.
Does it handle corrective action as well as containment?
Yes and it keeps them apart, which matters. The immediate disposition of the affected product is one thing. Whether the cause needs eliminating is a separate judgement with its own owner, due date and effectiveness check.
Conflating the two is the most common weakness I see in a spreadsheet register, because a single row encourages a single answer.
Will it help with our ISO 9001 audit?
It makes the records easier to produce and harder to lose. It cannot make your quality system compliant on its own and I would not claim otherwise.
What auditors normally want is evidence that non-conformances are recorded, dispositioned, actioned where required and closed. They also want you to be able to find that evidence when asked. The finding-it part is where most of the pain is and that part software genuinely fixes.
Do we need our own server, or IT people?
No to both. It is hosted and it runs in a browser. If your staff can open a website, they can use it and there is nothing to install on anybody's machine.
What happens to the NCRs we already have?
If they are in a spreadsheet or a database, they come across. Historic records are imported so that on day one your history is already there and searchable.
If they are on paper in a filing cabinet, that is a decision worth making deliberately. Most firms import the last year or two and leave the rest on paper, because typing up eight years of forms rarely earns back what it costs.
What does it cost?
From £1,950 depending on the size of the job, with no VAT to add and no per-user fees. Optional ongoing support is £750 a year or £75 a month and the first 30 days are included.
Before you commit anything you get a written blueprint, free, saying what it would become, what it would cost and how long it would take. It sometimes says the job is not worth doing.
How long does it take to build?
From two weeks once the quote is accepted. You get a link to try part-way through rather than a surprise at the end.
Your current spreadsheet or paper system carries on untouched until you decide to switch, so there is no week where you are between systems.
Related
If the problem is wider than NCRs
Start here
Send me your NCR form. Get a blueprint back, free.
A photograph of the paper form, or a screenshot of the spreadsheet register, plus a line or two on how it gets closed out. Within two working days you get a written breakdown: what it would become, how long it would take and exactly what it would cost.
Free whether or not you hire me. No sales call unless you ask for one.