RootLog records nonconformances in a structure a machine can read — so the fourth time a cause repeats, you're told while you're still typing, not eleven months later at the management review.
Free during the beta, then £1,500 a year + VAT per site. Runs in a browser on one machine. No account, no server, no internet connection required. Your data never leaves the building.
Freehand root cause fields let every person describe the same failure differently. The information is all there — it just can't be added up, sorted, or trended, so the repeat goes unnoticed until it's expensive.
All three are the same failure: superseded drawings reaching the shop floor. A spreadsheet counts them as three unrelated one-offs. RootLog counts them as one cause, four times, with a running cost against it — because the category was picked from a list instead of typed into a box.
Nothing to configure before you can use it. Open it, log the first NCR, and the rest of the tool fills itself in from what you've already recorded.
Event, immediate cause, root cause category, corrective action, cost. Category comes from a fixed list; the detail box stays free text for the story. Guided prompts push past "operator error" to the thing that actually needs to change.
Every NCR in one filterable list — open, closed, by cause, by cell, by supplier, by date. The register an auditor asks for, without rebuilding it the night before.
Causes ranked by frequency and by cost, with a direction of travel on each. You find out which three causes are producing most of your scrap, and whether last quarter's fix actually held.
Nonconformances attributed to incoming material, totalled by supplier with cost attached — and a corrective action request that prints with the dates and reference numbers already in it.
Every corrective action carries a name and a date, and overdue ones go red. Closing an NCR means the action was done, not that the paperwork was filed.
A dated pack covering nonconformity, cause, action taken and whether it worked — plus a management review summary and a full data export in CSV or JSON. Import runs the other way: bring your existing NCR spreadsheet in as CSV and map its columns to RootLog's fields.
RootLog isn't a spreadsheet with a nicer skin. Four choices do the real work.
Picked from a fixed set of categories, with an "other" that makes you name it in a few words. That single constraint is what makes counting, ranking and trending possible at all. Everything else in the tool depends on it.
A pattern you find in a quarterly review is history. A pattern you're shown mid-entry, with the earlier reference numbers and the still-open action attached, is a decision you can make while the job is still on the bench.
Rework hours, scrapped material, expedited freight, admin time — entered at logging, when someone still remembers. Cost is what turns "this keeps happening" into a case that gets funded. Nobody can reconstruct it six months later.
Written by a working quality inspector who logs findings against fixed criteria for a living. The field order, the wording, and the refusal to accept "operator error" as a root cause all come from that bench, not from a product workshop.
Typically one to three people responsible for quality across a site of 10–150, with a certification to hold and no appetite for a six-month QMS implementation.
You hold a quality certification and the NCR log works well enough to pass. What it can't do is tell you which causes repeat, what they cost, or whether last year's corrective actions actually stuck. RootLog answers all three from the same entries you already make.
You need a nonconformance and corrective action process that exists on day one and produces evidence by the audit. Start logging today; the register, the pattern view and the audit pack build themselves as you go.
You suspect two suppliers cause most of your rejections but you can't prove it. Attribute NCRs to source, total the cost, and send a corrective action request backed by dates, references and figures rather than an impression.
The order matters. Import first and the pattern view has something to say on day one instead of after twenty fresh entries — everything after that is a minute per NCR and a print at the end.
Export your existing NCR spreadsheet to CSV and import it. Map your columns to RootLog's fields once, assign the old freehand causes to categories, and years of nonconformances become countable in an afternoon.
Event, cause, category, action, cost — entered on the quality office machine while the detail is still fresh. If that cause has come up before, RootLog says so before you've finished typing.
Each corrective action has an owner and a due date. Overdue items surface on their own. An NCR closes when its action is complete, not when the form is filled in.
Audit pack, supplier corrective action request, or management review summary — generated from the entries, dated, and ready to save as PDF. Full CSV and JSON export whenever you want it.
One machine, on purpose. There's no cloud account holding your nonconformance history, no per-seat licensing, and nothing for IT to sign off. Your quality record sits on the machine in the quality office, the way the paper log used to sit in the filing cabinet.
Which puts the backup on you. If that machine dies, gets wiped or gets replaced and you never downloaded a backup file, the data goes with it. RootLog prompts you — it can't do it for you.
RootLog is in beta and I'm looking for a small number of firms to use it on live NCRs and tell me where it's wrong. This isn't a waiting list — you get the full tool immediately, and it costs nothing for as long as the beta runs. When the beta ends the normal price is £1,500 a year + VAT per site, one invoice, once a year — and firms who took part in the beta keep that price.
RootLog is beta software, supplied as is. It is in active development, it may contain bugs, and those bugs may include losing data you have entered.
Do not make RootLog the only place a record exists. Keep your existing log running alongside it, and download the backup file regularly — there is a one-click backup built in and it will prompt you.
If something breaks I'll fix it quickly and I'd rather hear about it than not. But I can't recover a record that was only ever in one place, and no warranty is offered on a free beta.
Two fields are enough. I'll reply personally, usually within a day.
or email joe@rootlog.co.uk
No. RootLog does one part of it properly: nonconformances, root cause, corrective actions and the evidence that comes out of them. Your procedures, document control and everything else stay where they are.
No. However nonconformances reach the quality office now — paper slip, notebook, a shout across the floor — that stays exactly as it is. The only thing that changes is where it gets typed up, and that's one person at one desk doing what they already do in Excel. There's no shop-floor rollout and nobody to retrain.
An auditor wants to see that a nonconformity was recorded, the cause established, action taken, and the effectiveness checked. The audit pack lays out all four per NCR, dated and referenced, in the order they'll be asked for. No tool makes you compliant on its own — an auditor assesses your process, not your software — but it means the evidence is already assembled instead of pieced together the week before.
On the same machine, as many people as you like — there are no user accounts and no per-seat charge. Across several machines sharing one live register, no, and that isn't a feature waiting to be built. Keeping the record on one device is what allows RootLog to hold no account, upload nothing, and need no approval from IT. If you need a synced multi-site register, you need a different class of system.
Then you need the backup file. RootLog gives you one-click backup and prompts you when it's been too long since the last one, but downloading and keeping it somewhere safe is on you. Treat it like the key to the stores.
During the beta, take that seriously. The software is supplied as is and may contain bugs, including ones that lose data. Keep your existing log running alongside RootLog and back up often — nothing you enter should exist only in one place.
Yes. Export your existing log to CSV and import it — you map your column headings to RootLog's fields, so it doesn't matter what your spreadsheet calls things. Old freehand root causes get assigned to categories as they come in, which is usually the moment the first repeat becomes obvious.
It's worth doing before you log anything new. Three years of history turns the pattern view on immediately rather than leaving it empty until you've built up fresh entries.
Nothing during the beta — it's free, in full, for every firm taking part. After that it's £1,500 a year + VAT. One invoice, once a year, per site — not per user, not per NCR, with no modules to add on and no monthly subscription to sit on your card. Beta sites keep that price locked, and nobody in the beta gets billed without plenty of notice.
Whether it's worth it is a question your own cost column answers. If the pattern view stops one recurring cause that was quietly costing you a few hundred pounds each time it came round, it has paid for itself and then some. If your nonconformances are rare and cheap, it hasn't.
No. It runs in the browser that's already on the machine — nothing to download, no admin rights, nothing for IT to approve. Bookmark it and it opens like any other application. It lives on that one machine, so pick the one that stays put.
Joe — a quality inspector who spends his working life assessing condition against fixed criteria, building the tool he wanted for smaller firms that carry the same obligations with a fraction of the resource. Reach him directly at joe@rootlog.co.uk.
You'll log it either way. The only question is whether the log tells you it's the fourth one.
Join the beta — freeFree for the whole beta. Normal price after that: £1,500 a year + VAT per site.
or email joe@rootlog.co.uk