Typical KanBo Applications in Real Work

Quality Control & Audits — Achieving Traceability, Accountability, and Continuous Improvement

Request

We manage quality inspections, internal audits, and corrective actions across multiple departments.
Our biggest challenge is keeping everything consistent — tracking nonconformities, linking root causes, assigning corrective actions, and ensuring deadlines are met.
Today, this process is scattered between Excel logs, email threads, and manual reports.
We also need to maintain full traceability for external audits and certifications (ISO 9001, GMP, or internal standards).
Can KanBo help us organize, document, and monitor the entire quality process — from detection to resolution — in one system?

KanBo Answer — A Living Digital QMS

KanBo brings together inspection results, findings, and actions into one unified, auditable environment.
Instead of static reports, KanBo turns every quality event into a living workflow — traceable, structured, and accessible in real time.

Each Workspace represents your overall Quality Management area (for example, Quality Control or QMS & Audits).
Within it, you create Spaces for the main quality domains, such as:

“Incoming Inspection,” “Nonconformity Tracking,” “Internal Audits,” “CAPA Management.”

Within each Space, Cards represent specific quality cases — an audit finding, a deviation, or a corrective action — and move through a clear, predefined status flow like:

Detected → Under Investigation → Corrective Action Defined → Verified → Closed.

This structure ensures nothing gets lost, and every finding is traceable from origin to resolution.

How It Works in Practice

Let’s imagine a manufacturing company where the quality team performs routine inspections and manages internal audits.

You create:

• Workspace: “Quality Management”
• Spaces:
  • “Incoming Material Inspection”
  • “Production Quality Checks”
  • “CAPA Tracking”
  • “Audit Findings – 2025 Cycle”

When a nonconformity or finding occurs, a new Card is created in the relevant Space.
For example:

• “Deviation #432 – Incorrect Labeling of Batch 15A”
• “Audit Finding – Lack of Calibration Documentation”
• “CAPA: Update Work Instruction WI-08”

Each card contains:

• A description of the issue and root cause analysis (5 Whys, Fishbone, or FMEA summaries)
• Attached evidence — photos, reports, inspection data
• Responsible persons for corrective and verification steps
• Due dates, priorities, and To-Do checklists for corrective and preventive actions
• Card Relations linking related deviations or audit findings
• A Status showing the current progress
• Full Activity Stream automatically logging every change and comment

The DashSpace View provides live visibility into how many nonconformities are open, overdue, or under verification — while Relations give you the full traceability chain:
from Deviation → CAPA → Verification → Closed Report.

Before and After KanBo

Before:

• Quality events tracked manually in Excel or emails.
• Duplicate or missing records during audits.
• Delayed follow-ups and unclear ownership.
• Preparing for certification audits required weeks of consolidation.

After:

• Every deviation and CAPA exists as a traceable, structured card.
• Ownership and deadlines are transparent.
• DashSpaces show the live state of the quality system.
• Audit preparation takes hours instead of weeks — everything is already documented.
• Quality and operations teams collaborate directly on the same cards.

KanBo effectively becomes your operational quality cockpit — connecting findings, actions, and improvements into one auditable system.

Continuous Improvement in Action

Quality teams can use KanBo not just to close issues but to learn from them:

• Link repeated deviations to systemic improvement projects.
• Track performance indicators such as CAPA completion time, on-time closure rate, and recurrence rate.
• Conduct management reviews directly in KanBo, filtering findings by product line, supplier, or process.

Each improvement initiative can even become its own Space, with relations back to the original findings — providing the full feedback loop from issue detection to organizational learning.

KanBo Features in Action

Function	Description	Value
Spaces	Represent audit or inspection programs	Separates and organizes quality domains
Cards	Represent findings, deviations, or CAPAs	Keeps full context, evidence, and discussion
Statuses	Define lifecycle of quality events	Standardizes process and ensures compliance
Card Relations	Connect related issues and root causes	Enables traceability across processes
Attachments	Add evidence files, reports, and forms	Supports audit and certification readiness
DashSpaces	Summarize current state and KPIs	Provides management visibility
Activity Stream	Logs every change automatically	Creates a full audit trail

Outcome — Real-Time Quality and Audit Readiness

KanBo turns Quality Management from a reactive, document-heavy activity into a proactive, transparent system of improvement.

Your organization gains:

• Control: All deviations and actions are structured, owned, and visible.
• Accountability: Responsibilities and due dates are transparent.
• Traceability: Every change, comment, and file has a digital footprint.
• Readiness: Audit data is live and instantly exportable.
• Improvement: Lessons learned connect to process enhancement initiatives.

For auditors and managers alike, KanBo provides confidence that quality is not just managed — it’s lived.

With KanBo, compliance is not a burden.
It’s a natural outcome of well-structured work.