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8D report template and builder: D0 to D8, Word and PDF
An 8D report is the eight disciplines (8D) problem solving method written down: the team, a measured description of the problem, containment, the verified root cause and the reason it escaped, permanent corrective actions, proof they work, system changes so it cannot happen again, and closure. Fill in the 8D below, or paste the customer’s complaint and the builder starts it for you, then download it as a Word file or a PDF. A blank 8D template is one click away. Morsa, the AI operations agent for manufacturers, goes one step further and runs the whole 8D from the moment the complaint arrives.
Updated October 21, 2026
What is an 8D report?
8D stands for eight disciplines. Ford’s Powertrain group wrote the method down in its 1987 Team Oriented Problem Solving (TOPS) manual, and Ford’s later Global 8D (G8D) added a planning step, D0, and the escape point: the check that should have caught the problem and did not. ASQ describes 8D as a way to identify, correct and eliminate problems by finding their root causes, and notes it is used most for customer complaints, recalls and serious quality deviations, especially when the cause is not obvious or the problem crosses departments.
In practice an 8D problem solving report is what a supplier sends back when a customer complains. Automotive, aerospace, appliance and industrial customers often require the 8D format by name, and they read it to decide whether they can trust the next shipment.
The 8 disciplines in plain words
| Step | Name | What you do | What the report shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| D0 | Plan and emergency response | Decide a full 8D is needed and protect the customer today | The symptom, and actions such as a shipping hold or replacement parts |
| D1 | Team | Pick people who know the part and the process, with a champion who can approve spending | Names, roles and departments |
| D2 | Problem description | Describe the problem in facts and numbers: who, what, where, when, why it matters, how, how many (5W2H), plus is / is not | One problem statement and a 5W2H and is / is not table |
| D3 | Interim containment | Find and isolate every suspect part: at the customer, in transit, in your warehouses and in work in process | Each action with location, quantity checked, quantity found bad, owner and date |
| D4 | Root cause and escape point | Find why it happened and why your checks missed it, and prove both with a test | Occurrence and escape causes, how each was verified |
| D5 | Permanent corrective actions | Choose a fix for each verified cause and prove it works before rollout | Action, owner, due date and verification |
| D6 | Implement and validate | Put the fixes in place, collect evidence the problem is gone, then lift containment | Implementation dates, results, containment removal |
| D7 | Prevent recurrence | Change the system: FMEA, control plan, work instructions, calibration, similar parts | Each system change with owner and date, lessons learned |
| D8 | Closure and recognition | Close with the customer and thank the team | Customer acceptance, closure date, sign-off |
D0 to D8 as ASQ and Ford’s Global 8D describe them. Some companies number from D1 and fold D0 into D1.
8D report format: what each section must contain
Header: your company, the 8D number, customer, customer reference (complaint, NCR, SCAR or PO number), part number and name, lot, quantity affected, date opened and closed.
D2 in numbers: “12 of 400 valves leak at the stem” is a problem statement; “valves leaking” is not. The is / is not table shows what is affected and what is not, which is where the cause hides.
D3 with counts: a customer reads containment as quantities. Every location, how many were checked, how many were bad, who did it and when.
D4 with two causes: the occurrence cause (why it was made wrong) and the escape cause (why it got out). Each marked verified only after a test reproduces it.
D5 and D6 with evidence: an owner and a due date for each action, how it was verified, when it went live and the result.
D7 at system level: the documents that changed. A retrained operator is not a system change; an updated control plan is.
D8 sign-off: team leader, champion, quality manager and the customer’s quality contact.
The builder above produces exactly this layout, and the Word file is editable if your customer wants their own form.
Who does what on an 8D team
| Role | Does |
|---|---|
| Champion | A manager who owns the outcome, approves money and time, and removes roadblocks |
| Team leader | Usually a quality engineer: runs the meetings, writes the 8D, talks to the customer |
| Production supervisor | Runs the sorting and containment, knows what changed on the line |
| Process or design engineer | Tests the root cause and designs the permanent fix |
| Purchasing or supplier quality | Joins when a purchased part or material may be the cause |
| Customer service | Keeps the customer updated and arranges replacement parts |
How long an 8D takes
Your customer sets the clock, in its supplier quality manual or the complaint itself. A common pattern in automotive supply: containment (D3) within 24 hours, root cause and planned corrective actions (D4 and D5) within about 10 working days, and the full 8D closed within 30 to 60 days. Write the date of each discipline on the report; the builder has a date on every step, and the customer will look for them.
8D report example: leaking ball valves
This is the worked example prefilled in the builder. Northgate Valve Co. and Marlow Fluid Systems are fictional.
Complaint: Marlow Fluid Systems found 12 leaking ball valves (part BV-0750) out of 400 received, all from lot L2609-14, in their 150 psi air test.
D0: shipments of BV-0750 held in both plants; replacement valves from a later lot sent the next day.
D1: plant manager as champion, quality engineer Priya Nair as team leader, the line 2 supervisor, a process engineer, purchasing and the Marlow account rep.
D2: 12 of 400 valves leak at the stem, not the body; only lot L2609-14, assembled on line 2 in Plant 1; other sizes and Plant 2 are not affected.
| D3 containment location | Checked | Found bad |
|---|---|---|
| Marlow Fluid Systems (customer) | 400 | 12 |
| In transit to Marlow | 200 | 3 |
| Plant 1 warehouse | 640 | 5 |
| Plant 2 warehouse | 310 | 0 |
| Total | 1,550 | 20 |
Containment in the example: 20 bad valves found in 1,550 checked, 8 of them still in Northgate’s own stock or in transit.
D4: occurrence cause verified: the line 2 torque driver had drifted 18% low, so the stem packing was not compressed. An undersized O-ring batch was checked and ruled out. Escape cause verified: the end-of-line test checked the body at 80 psi for 5 seconds; 14 of 20 known leakers passed it.
D5 and D6: new torque driver and a daily torque check (owner: process engineer), and a 150 psi, 15 second stem test (owner: Priya). Validated with 0 leaks in 1,200 valves and 20 of 20 known leakers caught.
D7: PFMEA, control plan and work instruction updated; torque driver calibration every 3 months instead of 12; the same check on the other valve lines.
D8: customer accepted and closed; the line 2 team thanked for sorting 640 valves in one shift.
How to use the 8D builder
Paste the customer’s complaint email or form and press Start. The builder reads the customer, part number, lot, quantities and dates straight from the text and fills the header, D0, D2 and a containment checklist.
A moment later, D2 to D5 fill in with a drafted problem statement, containment plan, likely root causes to check and candidate actions. Every number in the draft comes from the complaint. Root causes are marked as hypotheses and owners are roles, because only your team can confirm them.
Edit anything. Add your team in D1, the counts in D3 as sorting comes in, and mark each cause verified or ruled out in D4.
Download the 8D as a PDF to send, or as a Word file to edit or paste into your customer’s own form. Copy text works for a supplier portal.
Your 8D stays in this browser, so you can come back and update it as each discipline closes. Load the worked example to see a finished 8D, or download the blank 8D template to fill in by hand.
How Morsa runs an 8D without the chasing
In most plants the 8D starts with someone retyping the customer’s email into a template, then spends a week in emails and phone calls: asking each warehouse to count, asking engineering for the root cause, asking every owner whether their action is done. The report is rarely late because the problem is hard. It is late because nobody has time to chase it.
Morsa is an AI agent that does that work inside the systems you already use. When Marlow reports 12 leaking ball valves from one lot, Morsa drafts the 8D the moment the complaint arrives: the team, the problem, and containment already counted in both plants from the ERP. It assigns the root cause to Priya, chases the containment and corrective actions with each owner in their own email, Teams or WhatsApp until the evidence is in, and keeps the 8D current. People approve; Morsa does the typing and the chasing. The same agent caught 5 of 8 production-stopping shortages early at JRG Automotive, saving $2M, and took J4S, a 120-person glass plant, from about 30% to about 75% on time across about 900 commitments in 4 weeks.
8D vs 5 Whys, CAPA, A3 and DMAIC
| Method | What it is | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| 8D | A team report from containment to closure, with root cause and escape point | A customer complaint or a serious defect that crosses departments |
| 5 Whys | A questioning tool: ask why until you reach a cause you can act on | Inside D4 of an 8D, or alone for a simple problem |
| CAPA | Corrective and preventive action: the quality system’s process for tracking problems to closure (ISO 9001, FDA) | Always: an 8D is one way to document a corrective action in a CAPA system |
| A3 | A one-page problem solving report from lean, on one A3 sheet | Continuous improvement inside your plant; ASQ suggests 8D for root cause work on a specific failure, A3 for improvement |
| DMAIC | Six Sigma’s define, measure, analyze, improve, control cycle | Chronic process variation that needs statistics, over weeks or months |
Root cause tools such as 5 Whys and the fishbone diagram live inside D4. See root cause analysis and root cause analysis tools for how to run them.
Common 8D mistakes
A vague D2. “Parts failing” gives the team nothing to test. Use the numbers, the lot and the is / is not.
Containment that skips a location. Stock in transit and work in process are where the next complaint comes from.
Operator error as the root cause. Ask why the process let the error happen; that is the cause you can fix.
No escape cause. If your test could not have caught it, the next bad part ships too.
Corrective actions with no owner or date, or verified only by “retrained the operator”.
D7 left empty. If the FMEA and control plan did not change, the system did not learn.
Closing before the evidence. Lift containment only after D6 shows the problem is gone.
Common questions
What does 8D stand for?
Eight disciplines: the eight steps D1 to D8 of Ford’s team problem solving method. Most 8D reports today also carry D0, the planning and emergency response step, so they run D0 to D8.
When does a customer ask for an 8D report?
Usually after a complaint: parts that failed at the customer’s line or in the field, a wrong or mixed shipment, or a repeat problem. Many automotive and industrial customers ask for one on every formal complaint.
What is an escape point?
The earliest point in your process where the problem should have been detected and was not. Ford’s Global 8D added it to D4 to D6, so every 8D fixes both the cause and the check that missed it.
Is an 8D the same as a CAPA?
No. CAPA is the system that tracks every corrective and preventive action; an 8D is a structured report for one problem. An 8D usually counts as the corrective action record in the CAPA system.
Can I download a blank 8D report template in Word?
Yes. Under the preview, Blank 8D template offers a Word file and a PDF with every discipline, empty tables and signature lines. The builder also downloads your filled 8D in both formats.
Does my complaint leave the browser?
The form, the preview and the downloads are built in your browser, and your 8D is kept only in this browser. When you start from a complaint, the complaint text is sent to Morsa’s server to draft D2 to D5, and it is not stored or logged. If the server is unreachable, you keep the fields the browser filled.
Related tools
WHERE MORSA FITS
Writing the 8D is the easy part. Chasing it closed is the job.
Morsa drafts the 8D when the complaint lands, counts containment stock across your plants from the ERP, and chases every owner by email, Teams, WhatsApp or whatever you already run on until the evidence is in. Your people approve each step.
