An electronic system is a viable option for many organizations. This also makes the system more usable for suppliers, subcontractors and others outside the organization. The simple act of transmitting CARs and PARs as e-mail attachments will save days over the old method of sticking them in interoffice envelopes and hoping they don't get buried on somebody's desk. The scope of the corrective and preventive action system should also be reviewed. There may be opportunities left unexploited.
Some organizations use a two-tiered approach to corrective and preventive actions.
Specifically, individual problems are recorded and investigated in a separate system, only to become official corrective or preventive actions after the same problem has occurred multiple times, impact on the customer is found to be significant or problems exceed a certain predetermined dollar amount. This approach is fine as long as the criteria makes sense and is rigorously enforced. Not conducting an investigation combined with not taking action is unsatisfactory regardless of how the organization structures its system. Registered organizations should also check with their registrars, as some have more conservative interpretations of when official corrective and preventive action must be applied. If we're dealing with a document control problem, the technical aspects will probably be relatively minor.