root cause analysis

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Abstract: I used to be on Facebook many years ago in an effort to keep up with old friends. However, I began to realize the forum was often used to create an illusion that someone wanted their community to have about them. I knew many of these people creating such illusions, that is how I know they were ‘illusions’. Their

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Chronic Failures = Hidden Treasures When we look at the widely used and misunderstood tool of Root Cause Analysis (RCA), we should reflect its interpretation in our own environments. Think about it: when is RCA typically requested and applied in our environment? Based on my experience, it is typically requested and applied when…

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Note: Everyone has their own way to use cause-and-effect logic trees and we use the PROACT RCA Methodology that we teach in our root cause analysis training courses. Sign up for our free RCA 101 course. What is a Logic Tree? A logic tree, in a general sense, is a graphical representation or structure used to systematically organize and display

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  Can you identify and name this fracture pattern? How can you tell it is that fracture pattern? Where are the origin(s) of the failure on the fractured surface? How can you tell where the origin(s) are?

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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 feed pump. Plant is operating normally when unexpectedly pump shuts down and causes a forced outage. Here is a basic process flow diagram for this process…

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 demonstrate that these terms, while seemingly generic references to regulatory compliance, actually elicit various interpretations from individuals. Therefore, applications of FMEAs and RCAs will be equally disjointed, along with the inconsistency of the analysis results.

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 it makes sense in your facility. RCA is so ill-defined that no matter what people use to solve problems at their facilities (i.e.- troubleshooting, brainstorming, problem-solving or scribbling on a bar napkin)…they will call it

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 on a napkin, using kraft paper and post it notes, or utilizing fancy software. In the end, the analysis is only as good as the analyst! I have seen some pretty bad ‘RCA’s documented in

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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 they had something called RCA. What made one facility better at it than another?  Why was one facility’s RCA more effective than another?

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 they are NOT. The range of what constitutes an effective RCA method is vast. Some RCA techniques have minimal emphasis on establishing all the ways a problem can occur.  Others provide a more comprehensive set

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.

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