
Case Study: Ash Grove Cement’s Enhanced Reliability with EasyRCA
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Company OverviewAsh Grove Cement, a leading North American producer of cement with 12 manufacturing plants and 41 distribution terminals across the U.S. and Canada, is committed to enhancing its operational efficiency, reliability, and safety across its facilities. As part of their continuous improvement efforts, Ash Grove Cement implemented EasyRCA, a web-based root cause analysis (RCA) software, to address challenges with

5 Whys Technique: Simple Steps to Find Real Problems (with examples and template)
Reading Time: 7 minutes
With over two decades in business – spanning strategy consulting, tech startups and executive leadership – I am committed to helping your organization thrive. At Reliability, we’re on a mission to help enhance strategic decision-making and operational excellence through the power of Root Cause Analysis, and I hope this article will be helpful! Our goal is to help you better

Root Cause Analysis Without Verification is Conventional Wisdom
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Root cause analyses are done every day all over the world. Organizations do root cause analysis because it is good business. From an explosion in an auto parts plant to the wrong prescription being given to a patient. Events such as these can have dramatic monetary, physical and psychological effects on an organization. To solve problems down to the true

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.

3 Steps To Make RCAs More Impactful For Your Managers
Reading Time: 10 minutes
If managers knew what the overall power of a well supported Root Cause Analysis (RCA) effort meant for their bottom-line, they would be breaking down doors to implement the process. Unfortunately, this is often not the case, so this paper is an attempt to educate such individuals about the characteristics of an effective RCA methodology. The paper focuses on the

The Secrets of How To Be a Good Reliability Engineer
Reading Time: 8 minutes
What does it take to be a good Reliability Engineer? Learn how to better utilize RCA thinking, develop Reliability habits, and how to build a business case with your management team. To increase your impact, you need to start thinking like an owner. Read on to learn The Secrets of Successful Reliability Engineers.

What is ‘Reliability Engineering’?
Reading Time: 3 minutes
What is ‘Reliability Engineering’? I have been very involved recently with ongoing LI discussions with respected and noted experts in the Safety community, revolving around the perceptions those in Safety have of Reliability, and vice-versa. In Safety today, there are ‘new’ approaches emerging being lead by noted Safety researchers like Sidney Dekker, Erik Hollnagel and Todd Conklin. Such ‘new’ approaches

Accepting We Could Be Part of the Problem
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Abstract: No matter where we work, we will experience failures or ‘undesirable outcomes’ of some kind. As long as we work with other humans, this will indeed be the case. These failures may surface in the form of production delays, injuries, customer complaints, missed deadlines, lost profits, legal claims and the like. In order to prevent the recurrence of any such undesirable outcome,