ABSTRACT
When a problem has been identified and the root cause of the problem has been discovered, it is time to take necessary and appropriate corrective actions. In many of the process improvement methodologies discussed earlier, this phase is referred to as the improvement phase. The objective is to make a change to the existing operation that mitigates or eliminates the occurrence of the identified problem. The word mitigate is used because there are some problems that can be minimized but not completely eliminated. For illustrative purposes let’s use earthquake damage as an example. A home can be designed to withstand an earthquake of a certain magnitude, but in all reality it is unfeasible if not impossible to design a home to survive the largest earthquake that is theoretically possible. In this situation the design solution implemented is intended to minimize the occurrence of earthquake damage to very rare incidences that cannot be predicted or controlled. In other cases the corrective actions are designed to produce a predetermined goal for improvement based on performance metrics such as reduction of cost or build time.
