What this is
What is an extent of condition review?
What is an extent of condition review?
It is a structured check, run after an investigation, asking two separate questions: where else does this exact physical or procedural condition already exist, and where else could the underlying cause produce a different failure. It exists to stop a site from treating a repeat event as a surprise.
How is this different from the extent of cause question?
Extent of condition looks for the same defect on other assets, sites, or shifts, for example a worn part from the same batch installed elsewhere. Extent of cause looks for the same underlying weakness producing a different symptom, for example a maintenance interval that is too long being applied to unrelated equipment.
Why does nuclear operating experience drive this template rather than ISO 9001?
Nuclear operating experience practice was built specifically around the discipline of learning from one event before it repeats elsewhere, with systematic searching rather than assuming a failure was isolated. General quality standards address corrective action but do not mandate this two-question sweep as a distinct step.
Scope
When is an extent of condition review required?
This record only makes sense once an investigation has already identified a specific condition and cause. Run before that point, it has nothing concrete to search for and becomes a generic risk sweep instead.
Use this template when
- A Root Cause Analysis has identified a specific condition and cause worth checking elsewhere
- The event was serious enough that a repeat elsewhere would be materially worse than a delay to check now
- You can systematically search asset, site, or process registers rather than relying on recollection
- The investigation lead is available to run the review alongside the area supervisors who know local variations
- You are running the Incident and Investigation programme and this is the step following Root Cause Analysis
Do not use it for
- Root Cause Analysis, which establishes the condition and cause this review then searches for elsewhere.
- Risk Assessment, which is the standing, whole-business risk record rather than a one-off post-event sweep.
- Corrective and Preventive Action, which documents the fix for the assets or processes this review flags, not the search itself.
- Verification Sampling Plan, which governs routine ongoing sampling rather than a one-time reactive check.
- A minor event where the condition is clearly confined to one piece of equipment with no comparable assets on site
Compliance mapping
Which Nuclear operating experience practice requirements does this satisfy?
This template follows nuclear operating experience practice rather than a certifiable clause structure. The rows below map that practice onto the form's actual sections.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Nuclear OE practice — condition search | The specific condition found in the investigation must be searched for systematically across comparable assets and sites | Extent of condition |
| Nuclear OE practice — condition search | The population checked and the number affected must be recorded, not just a conclusion of 'isolated' or 'widespread' | Extent of condition |
| Nuclear OE practice — cause search | The underlying cause, not just the condition, must be checked against other equipment, processes, or shifts | Extent of cause |
| Nuclear OE practice — cause search | A negative cause search ('No' at Cause Found Elsewhere) must still name the processes actually reviewed | Extent of cause |
| Nuclear OE practice — corrective scope | The scale of the response must be proportional to how widespread the condition or cause is found to be | Outcome |
| Nuclear OE practice — corrective scope | Any new corrective actions raised from the search must be traceable back to this review | Outcome |
What it does not cover
- Where Else Could This Exist, which repeats 'checked, none found' with no named assets, sites, or search method behind it.
- Where Else Could This Cause Apply, which is left as a single sentence while Where Else Could This Exist runs to several paragraphs.
- Number Checked and Number Found With Condition, which don't reconcile against Percent Affected, or against the Assets To Check picker actually used.
- Cause Found Elsewhere, which is marked 'No' with Processes To Review left blank, so nothing shows what was actually examined.
- Scope Of Action Required, which is set to 'Local' despite Percent Affected showing a double-digit proportion of the checked population.
Global
Extent of Condition Review requirements by country
This practice originated in one high-consequence sector but has since spread well beyond it, and the formality expected shifts by industry.
INPO- and WANO-derived operating experience programmes
Extent of condition and extent of cause are mandatory, auditable steps after any significant event, with the search method itself subject to independent review.
A review that only searches the condition and skips the cause question is flagged as incomplete, independent of whether any new failures were actually found.
OSHA Process Safety Management, 29 CFR 1910.119, incident investigation provisions
PSM requires findings from an incident investigation to be resolved and documented, which pulls sites toward a structured extent-of-condition sweep even where it isn't named as such.
Regulators reviewing an incident file look for evidence the site considered whether the same condition existed elsewhere, not just that the immediate cause was fixed.
No dedicated regulatory instrument; adopted voluntarily as a reliability practice
Sites without a nuclear or process-safety heritage often only run the condition search, because the cause search takes engineering judgement a shift-level reviewer rarely has time for.
Where this template is adopted outside its origin sector, extent of cause is the part most likely to be filled in weakly, and the part most worth checking first.
How to complete it
How to complete an extent of condition review, step by step
The fields are simple to fill in. The judgement is in deciding how far to actually search before concluding the sweep is done.
Assets To Check filters by asset type, but a worn part from a bad batch can end up on equipment of a different type if procurement mixed suppliers. Trusting the filter versus widening the search manually is a judgement call, and narrowing too early is how a second failure gets missed.
There is no fixed threshold for what percentage justifies escalating Scope Of Action Required beyond local. A low percentage on a small population and the same percentage on a large population carry very different weight.
State the cause too narrowly, for example 'this bolt was under-torqued', and the search finds nothing. State it at the right level, for example 'torque verification is missing on high-vibration assemblies', and it has something to test against other equipment.
A serious event with a genuinely isolated condition can still resolve as Local; a minor event that turns out business wide on the cause search should escalate regardless of how small the initiating incident looked.
What auditors find
Most common extent of condition review findings
The same gaps recur whenever these reviews are checked against the investigations that triggered them.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Extent of cause section completed with a single line while extent of condition is thorough | Nuclear OE practice — cause search | Require Where Else Could This Cause Apply and Processes To Review to both be populated before Review Complete can be checked. |
| Number Checked and Number Found With Condition don't match the Assets To Check or Sites To Check selections | Nuclear OE practice — condition search | Derive Number Checked from the actual picker selections rather than accepting an independently typed figure. |
| Cause Found Elsewhere marked No with no named processes reviewed | Nuclear OE practice — cause search | Make Processes To Review required whenever Cause Found Elsewhere is answered, regardless of the answer given. |
| Scope Of Action Required set to Local despite a double-digit Percent Affected | Nuclear OE practice — corrective scope | Flag any Local answer for a second sign-off when Percent Affected exceeds a defined threshold. |
| CAPA IDs Raised left blank even though the review found the condition or cause elsewhere | Nuclear OE practice — corrective scope | Require a linked CAPA ID whenever Number Found With Condition is greater than zero or Cause Found Elsewhere is Yes. |
| Review run by the RCA author alone with no area supervisor involved | Nuclear OE practice — condition search | Record area supervisor participation explicitly, since local knowledge of equipment variation is the main defence against a narrow search. |
Case in point
Case in point: the interval that was never questioned
A conveyor bearing failed after running past a lubrication interval someone had extended two years earlier to cut maintenance hours. The condition search checked every other conveyor bearing on site against the same interval, found none overdue, and the review closed on that question alone.
The cause question, had it been pursued, would have asked where else an interval had been quietly extended without re-validating the wear model. Eight months later a gearbox failed on unrelated equipment for the identical reason. The condition was different every time; the cause never was.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
4 sections
- Reference
- FDN-018
- Archetype
- Record
- Record ID
- EOC-2026-000
- Scoring
- Not scored
- Direction
- n/a
- Singleton
- Yes
- Basis
- Nuclear operating experience practice
- Links
- Linked from Root Cause Analysis
- Tags
- Investigation
- Sections
- 4
- Fields
- 22
- Follow up fields
- 0
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 4
Header
6 fieldsReview ID*
Format EOC-2026-00000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Case ID*
Thread key
RCA ID*
Links to FDN-013 RCA ID
Review Date*
Reviewed By*
Purpose Note
Two questions. Where else does this exact condition exist, and where else could this same cause bite us. This is how one incident prevents twelve.
Extent of condition
7 fieldsCondition Found*
The specific physical or procedural condition identified.
Where Else Could This Exist*
Be systematic. Same asset type, same area, same shift, same supplier.
Assets To Check
Sites To Check
Number Checked*
Number Found With Condition*
Percent Affected*
Tells you whether this was isolated or widespread.
Extent of cause
5 fieldsCause Identified*
The underlying cause from the investigation.
Where Else Could This Cause Apply*
Different equipment, different process, same weakness.
Processes To Review
Cause Found Elsewhere*
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Areas Affected
Outcome
4 fieldsScope Of Action Required*
Local, site wide or business wide.
CAPA IDs Raised
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Review Complete*
Signature*
FDN-018 · record IDs look like EOC-2026-000 · Linked from Root Cause Analysis
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The two-question structure is easy to state and easy to shortcut. Keeping the cause search honest and the follow-on actions raised is where this template tends to quietly fail.
Checks that Where Else Could This Cause Apply carries real content whenever Where Else Could This Exist has been filled in thoroughly, so the cause search doesn't get skipped.
Cross-references Assets To Check and Sites To Check against the live asset register, so the condition search population matches what actually exists rather than a stale list.
Tracks Scope Of Action Required against Percent Affected across reviews, and surfaces cases where a widespread finding was scoped as local.
Holds the extent of condition review against the linked Root Cause Analysis, confirms new CAPA IDs are actually raised where the search found something, and keeps the case thread connected end to end.
This template lives in General — control tower. The orchestration layer. Registries and engines every other workspace reads from.
Meet General→Glossary
Extent of Condition Review definitions and key terms
- Extent of condition
- The search for the identical physical or procedural condition on other assets, sites, or shifts beyond where it was first found.
- Extent of cause
- The search for the same underlying weakness producing a different failure elsewhere, distinct from finding the identical condition.
- Operating experience
- The discipline, originating in the nuclear industry, of systematically learning from an event before an equivalent one happens elsewhere on the same site or fleet.
- Percent Affected
- The proportion of the checked population found to carry the condition, used to judge whether an event was isolated or widespread.
- Scope of action
- The declared reach of the corrective response, ranging from local to site wide to business wide, set by what the search actually found rather than the severity of the initiating event.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about extent of condition review
Does every investigation need an extent of condition review?+
No, it is reserved for serious events where a repeat elsewhere would be materially worse than the delay of running the search. Minor, clearly isolated events don't warrant the full sweep.
Can the same person run both the condition and cause searches?+
The investigation lead typically drives both, but area supervisors need to be involved specifically because they know local variation the lead may not, particularly for the cause search.
What if the condition search finds nothing but the cause search finds several instances?+
That is a normal and important outcome. Scope Of Action Required should reflect the cause finding, not be suppressed because the condition search came back clean.
How is Percent Affected different from just reporting Number Found With Condition?+
A raw count doesn't say whether the finding is significant; five out of six checked is very different from five out of five hundred, and Percent Affected forces that comparison to be explicit.
Should this wait until the Root Cause Analysis is fully signed off?+
It needs a confirmed condition and cause to search against, so it follows the RCA's findings, but it doesn't need every downstream CAPA closed before it starts.
What happens to new findings from the search?+
Any condition or cause found elsewhere gets its own CAPA ID recorded in CAPA IDs Raised, rather than being folded into the original corrective action.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Incident and Investigation
Root Cause Analysis
Finds out why something happened rather than who was involved
Corrective and Preventive Action
The single action record used everywhere
Finding
Records a single deficiency picked up during an audit, inspection or check
Effectiveness Verification
Checks whether an action actually worked, some time after it was put in place
Just Culture Determination
Separates a system problem from a genuine choice to take a risk, using a consistent set of questions
Witness Statement
Captures what one person saw, heard or did, in their own words
More in Engines
Risk Assessment
The single risk assessment used across the whole business
Root Cause Analysis
Finds out why something happened rather than who was involved
Corrective and Preventive Action
The single action record used everywhere
Finding
Records a single deficiency picked up during an audit, inspection or check
Effectiveness Verification
Checks whether an action actually worked, some time after it was put in place
Just Culture Determination
Separates a system problem from a genuine choice to take a risk, using a consistent set of questions
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- INPO/WANO operating experience programme practice
- OSHA Process Safety Management, 29 CFR 1910.119(m) — incident investigation
- ISO 9001:2015 cl.10.2 — Nonconformity and corrective action (adjacent CAPA basis)
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.