← The Aegis Quality Resource Library
CAPA Escalation Criteria and Owner Accountability Guide
When a corrective action moves up, to whom, and what the escalation asks for; who owns each part of a corrective action; and a meeting rhythm that keeps actions moving without a chase.
Free to use, change and copy inside your own organization. Editable Word, plus a fillable PDF you can complete on screen.
The problem it solves
In most shops corrective actions escalate by mood. An action sits 90 days overdue before anyone above the owner hears about it, or the plant manager hears about every late signature and stops listening. Nobody is sure who accepts a root cause or who signs closure, and because 'quality owns CAPA', the department where the cause lives waits for quality to fix it. This guide sets five plain triggers whose thresholds you choose, the tier each goes to, and what each escalation asks the next person for: a decision, a resource or a date. It adds a responsibility table with one accountable name per activity, a short meeting rhythm, and an escalation log, so the system shows where actions stall and who can unstick them.
Who uses it, and when
Quality directors, quality managers and plant or general managers who set up or run the corrective action system, and every corrective action owner who needs to know where they stand. When you set up or reset the corrective action process; at each weekly review, to decide what moves up; and at management review, to check that the triggers are working.
Part of
CAPA Command Kit.
Clause references: 10.2.1, 5.3 (with 9.3.2). Clause numbers only; the standards text is not reproduced, use your own licensed copy.
A management aid, not certification or a registrar audit. Using it does not by itself show conformity to AS9100D or any other standard.
Page 1 of the PDF. Every resource includes a worked example.
Related resources
worksheet · Excel · fillable PDFCAPA Effectiveness Verification Worksheet
Prove a corrective action worked, not just that it was done: separate containment, correction and corrective action, set a measurable criterion before the action goes in, and hold the record open until the evidence is in.
Free with your email →
workbook · Excel · fillable PDFCorrective Action Aging and Program Health Dashboard
See at a glance how many corrective actions are open, how old they are, which are late, where they are stuck and how many of the closed ones were shown to work, from one plain CAPA log.
Free with your email →
template · Word · fillable PDFCorrective Action Request (CAR) Template
The request a quality team sends to a supplier or an internal department: the nonconformance stated so it can't be argued with, a due date for every stage, and a decision on each answer with the reason.
Free download →
template · Word · fillable PDFQuality Escape Investigation Template
For product that reached a customer: the timeline, every suspect part by location, what the customer was told and when, the detection point that failed and why, and actions at both the cause and the escape point.
Free download →
workbook · Excel · fillable PDFCAPA Intake and Prioritization Tool
Log every incoming problem in one place, rank it with a method you can see and change, decide correction or corrective action on purpose, and know who owns it and when the response is due.
Free with your email →
These tools help you run the work by hand. When you want the whole picture of your quality system from the records you already keep, that's what the AeroAssure Audit Defense Pack and the IA9100 Transition Gap Analysis do.