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Defect Elimination 101
Reading Time: 8 minutes In recent years, “Defect Elimination” has become a hot topic in the reliability world. But what exactly does defect elimination mean? How does it differ

Chronic Failure Calculator
Reading Time: 7 minutes Chronic Failure Calculator SEE HOW YOU CAN IDENTIFY ROI OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH OUR CHRONIC FAILURE CALCULATOR.View tutorial Chronic Failures are Not Cost of Doing Business! When

What’s Wrong With The Term “Root Causes”?
Reading Time: 2 minutes There is great variation when it comes to a common understanding of the term ‘Root Cause Analysis’ or RCA. In a previous, lengthy paper, I

The Stigma of RCA: What’s in a Name?
Reading Time: 4 minutes The Stigma of ‘RCA’ Let’s start off with some honesty…the term ‘RCA’ (Root Cause Analysis) is quite vague, misleading and easily misinterpreted by those who

RCA in Action: The Space Shuttle Columbia Investigation
Reading Time: 3 minutes As is typical in our manufacturing organizations, oftentimes it takes high visibility events with catastrophic consequences for a full-blown Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to be

Become An Equipment Reliability Detective: Preserve Failure Data
Reading Time: 6 minutes It’s amazing how quickly failure data (evidence) can disappear after a ‘failure’ has occurred. Following such an unexpected incident, there is sometimes a lot of

Nylon Plant Case Study
Reading Time: 2 minutes This case study took place at a nylon plant in Virginia which at the time provided major amounts of nylon to the tire and carpet

Reliability.com: Ammonia Plant Case Study
Reading Time: 3 minutes This case study takes place in a Louisiana ammonia plant. The plant had above industry average downtime (116 Days of downtime compared to an industry

What is the Difference Between Failure Analysis (FA), Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA)?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Recently, Reliability Center, Inc. received an inquiry from one of our web visitors asking the differences between three confusingly similar Reliability acronyms. We thought others

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) – Death of an Acronym?
Reading Time: 4 minutes As another well-known acronym has saturated industry today, it has been retired to the pasture of “dilution” farm. The term RCA is used to cover

Do We Get Our Money’s Worth Out of Training?
Reading Time: 3 minutes A turbine in a refinery fails catastrophically. The adrenaline is flowing as efforts to recover and get back on-line are taking place. Even though turmoil

How to Gain Management Buy-In for Root Cause Analysis?
Reading Time: 6 minutes Oftentimes we are sent to attend classes on various topics where the material is applicable to our work situation. However, we know deep inside that