Appearance
Issues
Table of Contents
An issue records a problem discovered during manufacturing, inspection, testing, or maintenance. It connects the problem to the affected work, captures the disposition decision, and tracks any remedy required to resolve it.
Finding and creating issues
The Issues page lists issues and supports filtered and Kanban views. Open an issue to review its description, status, affected records, disposition, and remedy.
Issues can also be created or associated from a work order or task. See issues on a work order for that workflow.
Affected records
One issue can be associated with multiple work orders, inventory lines, and tools. This supports problems that affect a complete batch, a lot, several lots, or work performed with the same equipment. When an issue is created, a hold is automatically placed on the linked item. The hold blocks tasks from being executed, and prevents tools and inventory from being used until the hold is released. Releasing the hold can be done manually, and can be approved alongside the issue disposition approval. See work order holds for how Holds differ from planned procedure dependencies and can connect tasks across work orders.
Associating every affected record keeps the scope of the problem visible and allows one disposition decision to coordinate follow-up work across that scope.
Diagnosis and disposition
An issue begins with a description and a suggested disposition type. Root-cause details and other diagnostic fields can be added after the initial report, allowing users to record the problem immediately and complete the investigation later.
Disposition types may be customized for an organization, and Factorial provides default types. Review requirements depend on the organization's settings.
An issue generally progresses through diagnosis, review, remedy, and completion.
Remedies
A remedy defines the follow-up work required by the approved disposition. Most final dispositions require a remedy. Use as is is an exception: it records acceptance of the condition without requiring additional work and leaves a visible flag on the affected task or inventory.
A remedy may use one of several execution paths:
- Add a task to an existing work order through a redline. The new task may block the originating task or another task in that work order.
- Create a work order from an established procedure for repeatable corrective work.
- Create an ad hoc project for work that does not yet have a controlled procedure. The project retains its relationship to the source issue and can be later promoted to a repeatable procedure.
An issue does not move to its final completed state until its required remedies are completed.
Remedies across multiple records
An issue that affects several records may require a separate action for each one. The remedy workflow can create multiple work order redlines or multiple projects under one coordinating project.
The status of an affected work order task depends on its assigned remedy rather than the issue's diagnostic or review status. This keeps execution blocking tied to the corrective work that must actually be completed.