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Errors Aren't the Problem — Managing Them Without a System Is
What matters isn't whether a mistake happens in production. It's how it's handled afterwards. In many businesses, mistakes are ignored, blamed on individuals, or patched over with a temporary fix. That approach guarantees the same mistake will happen again. And again.
Without a System, Errors Repeat
Picture a typical scene: something goes wrong on the line. Everyone looks at everyone else. Someone gets blamed. A quick fix gets applied. A few weeks later, the same problem resurfaces.
- Ignoring it: "It slipped through this time, no harm done."
- Blaming a person: "So-and-so made a mistake" — the root cause is never actually investigated.
- A temporary fix: the symptom disappears, the cause stays.
- Result: the same error comes back. And again. And again.
This approach doesn't just damage production quality — it erodes trust between people. Nobody wants to report a mistake if reporting it means getting punished. Errors become invisible, but they don't go away.
What Is CAPA?
CAPA — Corrective and Preventive Action — is an error-management system. Its premise is simple: every error is a piece of information. Analysed correctly, that information can stop the error from happening again.
We introduced this system at Tekiş Lastik in 2022. At first it was manual — paper forms, meeting notes. From 2025 onwards, we moved it fully onto a digital platform. It matured slowly over three years, and today it's part of how the company works, not a separate procedure bolted on top.
How the System Works at Tekiş
The process is fixed and known to everyone. Anyone on the floor who notices an error logs it in the digital system. The team or person responsible for that area has to respond within 24 hours. Human resources then leads the root-cause analysis and works out what needs to change. A CAPA board meets in the first week of every month to review open items systematically — if the cause is a system gap, the system gets improved; if it's a standards issue, procedures and instructions get updated. Every decision is then communicated back to the whole team through the same digital system. Transparency isn't optional here — everyone can see what was decided and why.
A Real Case: From a Return to a System
This isn't theoretical — it's something we've actually lived through.
- What happened: A product shipped to a customer was returned due to a quality mismatch. A CAPA record was opened.
- Root-cause analysis: A gap was found in the pre-production approval process — a control point was missing.
- Decision taken: A pre-production approval system was developed and written into our procedures and instructions.
- Result: Returns in this error category were minimised, and the new control point became permanent.
What makes this example strong is that the customer's complaint didn't stay just a complaint. It went into the system, was analysed, and changed a procedure — a structural safeguard was put in place so the same cause couldn't produce the same return again.
The Hardest Part: Changing the Culture
Building a CAPA system isn't technically difficult. Getting people to believe in it is.
We faced real resistance early on. There was fear: "If I report an error, I'll be punished." There was avoidance: "Why should I report it, let someone else do it." There was fatigue: "We already reported it and nothing changed."
First awareness. Then acceptance. Then culture. You can't skip that order.
The turning point came when sceptical colleagues saw their reported errors actually get resolved — and saw the same mistake stop recurring. They realised the system would protect them, not punish them. Today, nobody logs an error because they're told to. Everyone understands that reporting is a contribution to the solution, not an admission of blame.
Errors Aren't the Problem
Mistakes happen in every factory. What sets a manufacturer apart isn't the absence of errors — it's whether there's a system behind them. At Tekiş, every error is recorded, root-caused, and closed with an action that prevents it from recurring. Errors aren't the problem. Errors managed without a system are.