Stop production of the affected part. Quarantine suspect inventory, at the supplier, in transit, in the plant, at the customer. Add temporary 100% inspection to any batch that might contain the defect. Notify affected customers immediately if any suspect product may have shipped. Every action is bounded in time, containment is not the fix, it is the fence around the fire.
A common framework: Contain (protect the customer), Correct (fix the immediate cause), Countermeasure (install a permanent solution). All three are required. Containment alone leaves the process still producing defects. Correction without countermeasure lets the same defect reappear. Only the full sequence produces sustained protection.
Every hour between defect discovery and containment is an hour when more defective product moves further downstream. The cost multiplies at every step. Well-run containment is measured in hours, not days, and the willingness to shut down production or quarantine inventory quickly is one of the strongest signs of a genuine quality culture.
Containment is not the goal, Built-in Quality is. But when defects escape, containment is the discipline that limits the damage while the real fix is developed. Every mature quality system has a well-practiced containment process that can be triggered without hesitation.
