What is a non-conformance report?

A Non-Conformance Report (NCR) is used to identify products, parts, or work jobs with defects that do not conform to required specifications. NCRs are critical to maintaining high quality standards for products, workmanship, safety and vendors. 


Data drives better decisions, and better data collection can improve quality control processes and prevent quality problems. Companies are capturing more data, quickly identifying problems, and then resolving those problems with well-built and executed non-conformance reports. 

What industries use non-conformance reports?

Non-Conformance Reports (NCRs) are used to track and maintain quality standards at manufacturing and construction companies. They can also be used at utility and energy companies if readings are out of spec.

NCRs can also be used in virtual any industry to track quality or service issues.

construction and NCR

Why do companies use non-conformance reports?

Use non-conformance reports

NCRs allow companies to clearly identify issues with quality. An NCR report documents the details of why a part or job failed to meet quality standards, details what is needed to fix the problem, and determine a resolution or remediation. Having a strict quality process with detailed NCR reports that can be tracked and reported, allow companies to see if production is improving or decreasing and realize key trends or repeated problems with production.

Which employees complete non-conformance reports?

Inspectors, site inspectors, quality engineers, line managers, test technicians, project managers and supervisors typically fill out non-conformance reports.

Often remediation or corrective action activities are part of an NCR. They can be tracked on a separate tab of the report or collected in a separate or a follow on report, frequently called a Material Review Board (MRB) or remediation report. These forms continue the process by detailing and documenting any corrective action that was taken to fix the issue.

Non-conformance report users

While popular in manufacturing and construction, employees in virtually any industry can use non-conformance reports to document and track quality issues and improve quality control and quality assurance..

What questions are included on a non-conformance report?

Questions on a non-conformance report

A typical non-conformance report document or form might include questions like:

  • The time, date and location of the audit
  • What is wrong (including a concise definition of the problem)?
  • Why doesn’t the job or part meet quality specifications or standards?
  • Can the Company repair or resolve the problem or issue? If so, what corrective action should be taken?
  • If the Company could not repair the part, should it be scrapped, reallocated or resold?
  • Is this problem internal issues or is it related to an external vendor, part or contractor?
  • What data and time was the issue or problem resolved? What worker or department fixed the problem and what did they do to correct it? When was the work completed?
  • Who signed off that the correction action is complete and accurate?
  • How can we avoid this issue or problem in the future (preventative action or maintenance)?

These are just sample questions. It's important to make sure a NCR matches your unique product and processes to effectively identify, track and prevent quality issues. View this example of a non-conformance report template.

How does a non-conformance report get resolved?

Once an NCR is filled out it needs to be reviewed. Usually a quality engineer, production engineer or supervisor would review the NCR, disposition the material (for rework or return to vendor or scrap), The work would be assigned to a worker to repair.  Once the work was completed, it would be reinspected to verify the work was done fully and correctly.

Manufacturing on-conformance report
Inspectors typically fill out non-conformance reports.

How can companies use non-conformance reports for quality control?

quality control

Departments that add NCR documents to their quality management software tools or quality management systems can use NCR data and trends to identify:

  • sub-standard equipment
  • vendor parts that don't meet specifications or requirements
  • poorly performing work stations
  • safety issues
  • preventative action opportunities.

Free Non-Conformance Report Templates

There are great NCR examples and NCR templates for free on the web.
One company that offers a free non-conformance report template  in the form of a mobile app: the Alpha Software Non-Conformance Report Template. You can customize the template to match your quality system ad approval process. The app goes beyond a paper NCR because it can take time/date stamps automatically, take pictures of the problems, record an audio note from the inspector, scan a bar code on the part and more. Get the free NCR template below.

NCR Report Template Images

NCR App Screenshot 1
NCR App Screenshot 2
NCR App Screenshot 5
NCR App Screenshot 4


Still have Questions?

Email sales@alphasoftware.com or Call 781-229-4500