Bob Latino

Bob is co-author of numerous articles and has led seminars and workshops on FMEA, Opportunity Analysis and RCA, as well as co-designer of the award winning PROACT® Investigation Management Software solution. He has authored or co-authored six (6) books related to RCA and Reliability in both manufacturing and in healthcare and is a frequent speaker on the topic at domestic and international trade conferences. Bob has applied the PROACT® methodology to a diverse set of problems and industries, including a published paper in the field of Counter Terrorism entitled, “The Application of PROACT® RCA to Terrorism/Counter Terrorism Related Events.”

Bob Latino Articles

by Bob Latino

Updated: January 5, 2022

Name That Failure Pattern | 2nd Edition

Reading Time: 3 minutes This failure occurred on a turbine driven boiler feedwater pump (TDBFP) at a fossil fuel power plant. The pump in question is an outboard boiler

by Bob Latino

Updated: April 23, 2024

Name That Failure Pattern – Part 1

Reading Time: 8 minutes This is a failed shaft that came out of a pump in a paper mill. The pump was only in service for about a month

by Bob Latino

Updated: November 16, 2023

Examining Rolling Element Bearings

Reading Time: 7 minutes In our last series highlighting the 4 primary Failure Modes (FM) of component failures (erosion, corrosion, fatigue and overload), we discussed how to read fractured surfaces.

by Bob Latino

Updated: April 23, 2024

Optimizing RCA and FMEA in Health Care

Reading Time: 12 minutes “Failure Mode and Effect Analysis” (FMEA) and “Root Cause Analysis” (RCA) are becoming commonplace terms in work environments and in the literature. This article will

by Bob Latino

Updated: May 2, 2024

Defining Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

Reading Time: 7 minutes In this blog, I discuss the RCA definition I used as a career analyst/investigator and explain why it makes sense to me. You decide if

by Bob Latino

Updated: December 11, 2023

3 Steps to Improve Your Root Cause Analysis

Reading Time: 5 minutes There are various ways for us to improve our root cause analysis and take our reliability to the next level. Reliability professionals could do RCAs

by Bob Latino

Updated: October 22, 2024

The 5 Reasons Why Most RCA Efforts Fail to Have a Lasting Impact

Reading Time: 5 minutes Most of us have all worked at places with some degree of an ‘RCA’ effort. They likely all defined and practiced ‘RCA’ differently, but nonetheless

by Bob Latino

Updated: July 31, 2023

The PROACT® Approach to RCA

Reading Time: 9 minutes Chapter 1: Is All RCA the Same? An RCA myth shared by many managers is that RCA methods are all the same, when in fact

by Bob Latino

Updated: April 23, 2024

Is There Really a Direct Correlation Between Reliability & Safety?

Reading Time: 6 minutes Safety is often directly correlated with system or component reliability. Is that really the case? Find out what the experts and their data really says.