What is a deviation?
HSE Incident
A hazard or accident situation that has, or could have, led to injury to people or the external environment. Damage to property and other financial losses resulting from unwanted incidents should be included when classifying HSE incidents.
Quality Incident
QA incident/deviation is a deviation that occurs during ongoing operations, general activity, or other activity related to the company. A quality incident should be registered to ensure proper quality assurance and knowledge management.
Supplier Deviation
Similar to a deviation, but used if you want to differentiate incidents that are not fully under your control and provide a better way to track issues reported to a supplier. This type of registration will give you an explicit case to follow up with your supplier and ensure they continuously improve in your purchased products and services.
Observation
Similar to a deviation, but used if you want to differentiate observations that are not fully under your control, e.g., when your colleagues are working at a customer’s location and your company is not responsible for tracking deviations/observations. This type of reporting can also be used to track your own observations if there is a need to differentiate observations from HSE and Quality Incidents.
Improvement Suggestion
Continuous improvement is achieved by capturing reported improvement suggestions, processing registered deviations, and experiences. Direct and indirect improvement suggestions can be registered to ensure the company benefits from good ideas and daily findings. These suggestions can be linked to projects, companies, and departments.
Customer Feedback
Feedback from customers that is not part of your periodic customer satisfaction survey. Registration is typically direct or indirect feedback from customers about products, services, meetings, media/marketing surveys where the company is mentioned, shared external audit results, and other verbal or written feedback. Remember the nuance between deviations and customer feedback. Customer feedback can, in some cases, trigger the need to submit a deviation.
These registrations are for counting purposes.
Registration Form
Below is a table explaining all the data fields in the registration form for a QHSE reporting card. When a new case is registered, a notification is sent by email to the QHSE responsible person in the company. The QHSE responsible will then review the case and assign it to an employee for further evaluation.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Type of registration | Dropdown menu to select registration. This field may be locked, depending on where in the system you opened a registration form. |
| Date | Registration date. This field will default to today's date. |
| Title | Title of the registration |
| Description | Description of the incident |
| Immediate actions | Description of immediate measures taken after the incident |
| Suggested long-term actions | Description of suggested long-term action to prevent the incident from recurring |
| Direct cause | Dropdown menu to select what caused the incident |
| Related project | Dropdown menu to select the related project |
| Location | Dropdown menu to select where the incident happened. Some allow this field to have an option for users to specify instead of fixed locations. |
| Attachment | Button to upload attachments, and adjacent area to view uploaded attachments |
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Changing selection values may cause Dashboards not to display the correct data.
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For customer feedback, the user must also specify a feedback type.
The choices are: positive - neutral - negative.
For supplier deviation, the user can add additional references to purchase order and part number to help the case handler better find the problem.
Edit Form
The deviation editing form is divided into three sections.
- Information from the registration form
- Case processing. Here you have five processing phases for the registration: Coding, classification, actions, cost, and approval and closure.
- Comments and attachments
Case Processing
1 - Coding
The QHSE responsible person has received a notification that a new case has been registered and can open it directly from the link in an email or Teams message, or from the QHSE list and the edit button. Now the QHSE responsible must go through the coding phase for the case. In the coding phase, the QHSE responsible decides who will handle the case further and sets a deadline date for processing.
Below is a table explaining all the data fields in the coding phase of a QHSE reporting card. When all relevant fields are filled in, click the button to hand over. The person assigned as case handler will then receive a notification and the case changes status to "Assigned".
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Delegated to | Person who is the case handler |
| Priority | Dropdown selection of priority |
| Due date | Date field for due date |
| Related project | Search for associated project (*) |
| Company | Search for associated company (*) |
| Contract | Search for associated contract (*) |
| Lead | Search for associated lead (*) |
| Department | Search for associated department (*) |
| Hand over to case handler | Send button with handover notification to an assigned case handler (**) |
| Next | Navigate further to classification |
(*) only one associated item can be selected.
(**) KPI measurement, days from registered to assigned to case handler
2 - Classifications
The person assigned as case handler has now received a notification and can open the case directly from the link in an email or Teams message, or from the KHMS list and the edit button. The case will also be available under My page. Now the case handler must go through the phases of classifications, actions, and cost for the case. It is recommended that the company has a procedure for handling deviations. Below is a table explaining all the data fields in the classification phase of a KHMS reporting card.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Category | Dropdown selection of incident category |
| Subcategory | Dropdown selection of incident subcategory |
| Direct cause | Dropdown selection of direct cause |
| Root cause | Multi-select field of original cause |
| Actual health | Dropdown assessment of the effect category actual health |
| Potential health | Dropdown assessment of the effect category potential health |
| Actual finance | Dropdown assessment of the effect category actual finance |
| Potential finance | Dropdown assessment of the effect category potential finance |
| Actual reputation | Dropdown assessment of the effect category actual reputation |
| Potential reputation | Dropdown assessment of the effect category potential reputation |
| Actual environment | Dropdown assessment of the effect category actual environment |
| Potential environment | Dropdown assessment of the effect category potential environment |
| Total severity | Dropdown assessment of general severity |
| Assessment comments | Text field for subjective assessment comments |
| Back | Navigate back to coding |
| Next | Navigate forward to actions |
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For improvement suggestions, you only get options for category, probability, consequence, and assessment comments. Probability and consequence are rated from 1-5 and visualized in a 3x3 benefit matrix.
For customer feedback, only category, direct cause, and assessment comments are applicable.
3 - Actions
Create Workspace
Create a QHSE workspace for a deviation by turning the switch on and then clicking save. A workspace will then be created for the registration.
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This feature is usually used for investigation purposes or opportunity development.
This feature is not supported for improvement suggestions.
Create Action
For a deviation, actions will be necessary. Below is a table explaining all data fields when registering a new action in a QHSE reporting card. Click +New to create a new action.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | Title of the action task |
| Description | Description of the action task |
| Due date | Due date of the action task |
| Action type | Select whether the action is preventive or corrective |
| Delegated to | Assign the action task to a person |
| Status | Status of the action task |
4 - Cost
The last part of the case processing for the case handler is the cost phase. Here, it is advantageous for the company to have a procedure with definitions of how internal hours, internal cost, and other costs are determined. Below is a table explaining all the data fields in the cost phase of a QHSE reporting card.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Internal hours | Number field for registering the number of hours used |
| Internal cost | Number field to register internal costs |
| Other cost | Number field to capture external costs |
| Total cost | Number field showing the sum of internal and other costs |
| Cost comment | Multiline text field for subjective cost comments |
| Ready for evaluation | On/off switch to mark ready for evaluation. |
| Hand over for evaluation | Send button that gives a handover notification to the KHMS responsible group (*) |
| Back | Navigate back to actions |
| Next | Navigate forward to closure |
(*) KPI measurement, days from assigned to ready for evaluation
5 - Approval and Closure
When the case handler has finished and sent the deviation for evaluation, the QHSE responsible person will receive a notification. Now the QHSE responsible must access the case processing to review the deviation and decide whether it should be re-evaluated or approved and closed. Below is a table explaining all the data fields in the approval and closure phase of a QHSE reporting card.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Evaluation date | Date field for evaluation date |
| Evaluation | Multiline text field for subjective assessment comments |
| Due date for new assessment | Date field for due date for new assessment |
| Approved | On/off switch to mark approved |
| Closed | On/off switch to mark closed |
| Back | Navigate back to cost |
| Finish | Save and close form |
Comments and Attachments
Comments
While processing a QHSE reporting card, it is possible to document thoughts and subjective conclusions with the comment function.
To add a new comment, write the text in the comment field, format the text as desired, and click Save on the form. The next time a user visits the edit form, your comment will be visible. The comment field makes it possible to collaborate with colleagues during case processing, evaluation, and closure.
Attachments
When you register a new QHSE registration, you can upload any relevant attachment to the registration card. It is also possible to supplement with additional attachments that were not available to the reporter at the time of registration. To upload an attachment, click Select files and find the file you want to upload.
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This also works from the camera on your mobile devices.
Process
To help you understand the end-to-end process for QHSE reporting, we have created some examples of a cross-functional flowchart for deviations, improvement suggestions, and customer feedback.
Deviation
Improvement Suggestion
Customer Feedback
Notifications and Statuses
The QHSE reporting system will have predefined business rules to notify and timestamp progress for KPI measurements. The table below explains changes and notifications based on form actions performed during the active lifecycle of a single registration.
| Form Action | Column Status Changes | Notification To | Notification Type | Microsoft Teams Channel Post | KPI Timing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New case | Registered | QHSE Manager | Custom card and email | New case | Created date |
| Assigned | Assigned | Assigned user | Custom card and email | Assigned date | |
| For evaluation | For evaluation | QHSE Manager | Custom card and email | Case ready for evaluation | |
| Approved | For evaluation | Author | Custom card and email | Approved date | |
| Ready for evaluation | For evaluation | Ready for evaluation date | |||
| Closed | Closed | Author | Custom card and email | Closed date |
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The actions in the form cause status changes when the form is saved.
Summary
While reading through this introduction to the QHSE reporting function, you may have felt that it could be difficult to implement. As mentioned on the introduction page, the key to success is to have a well-documented procedure for the various types of registrations. This will make your colleagues, managers, and other stakeholders see the benefits more clearly and ensure that the results will increase the HSE and quality focus in your company.
If you need any tips on how to document such a process, we are always here to help you.
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