Root cause analysis can greatly impact a product design in an industrial setup. As a result, it can save organizations from huge financial losses and help improve business operational efficiency. In addition, when workers can diagnose a problem through comprehensive analytical techniques, it helps them with effective maintenance planning and scheduling for the future.
In this post, find out how critical root cause analysis can be helpful for businesses. You’ll learn about tools to conduct an effective root-cause analysis. Moreover, you’ll find out why industrial maintenance training is essential for long-term business sustainability
What Is Root Cause Analysis?
Root cause analysis is a process that allows you to find the causes of a defect in products or processes. It’s a systematic procedure that involves several steps, allowing investigators to categorize defects. Typically, root cause analysis may be conducted before a product release, but it’s also common to have post-release RCAs.
Thanks to a comprehensive Root Cause Analysis process, it’s easier to conduct preventive maintenance and develop future products that are more robust.
Likewise, Root Cause Failure Analysis, or RCFA, helps understand the underlying causes of a product or process failure. When investigators sufficiently understand these causes, they evolve their development procedures to mitigate future risks. As a result, it can help them save time and money on product design.
How Root Cause Analysis Works
To understand the concept of root cause analysis, let’s consider an example of a retail store that primarily uses a software solution to manage all its transactions. Typically, these solutions are called Point-of-Sale (POS) solutions.
But a network outage or service interruption would ruin the operations, causing service delays and downtime. Now, if the retail store uses a service availability platform, it would automatically perform an automatic root cause analysis. Hence, it allows them to better monitor and pick defaults instantly, helping resolve faults quicker.
For example, there is power plant software that helps run large industrial facilities. So, when a plant experiences a service breakdown, automatic root cause analysis tools can help figure out the possible glitches that could prevent plant shutdown in the future.
Essential Root Cause Analysis Tools
There is no single procedure to perform a root cause analysis. Generally, it involves maintenance consultation to understand the impacts and possible analytical techniques to help mitigate the risk in the future.
Here are some of the essential tools for effective Root Cause Failure Analysis. We will examine how these tools can be beneficial in conducting a root cause analysis and why they may be important for your company.
1. 5 Whys Analysis
The 5 Whys Analysis, also known as the 5Ws, involves an interesting process of asking the question ‘Why?’ five times before getting to the core of the problem.
For instance, if you experienced a plant shutdown due to a defective machinery part, you could ask the following set of 5 Whys to understand the problem:
- Why was the part defective? Possibly due to a manufacturing fault.
- Why did the machine fail? The workers may not have conducted preventive maintenance.
- Why was there no preventive maintenance? Probably due to poor maintenance scheduling or the worker’s lack of essential industrial maintenance training.
- Why were the workers lacking training? They might have missed the latest training opportunity.
- Why did they miss the training? They needed to be properly informed about the available training by the HR department.
Hence, it’s a simple concept that helps you drill down to the core of a problem, revealing new information to every question. As a result, managers can improve their preventive maintenance, scheduling, and planning measures and provide essential training to mitigate the risks in the future.
The 5 Whys technique is especially important in solving separate issues from other variables. This is because it involves a chain of causes that are superficial and easy to solve. So, it can be a perfect option for solving day-to-day problems in an organization.
2. Fault Tree Analysis
In a Fault Tree Analysis, analysts figure out the root causes with the help of a logical-deductive method. So, while analyzing FTA, investigators describe the failure and all its modes. Next, they map each failure mode with the available data to evaluate the possible cause of a problem.
The cycle continues in the form of a tree, ending up with several connections and overlaps. Finally, a deduced result explains the root cause of a failure.
For example, in case of a fire eruption in a warehouse, there can be several possible causes.
- Presence of a flammable material
- Possible chances of self-initiated fire
- Insufficient ventilation
- Equipment heat up
- Poor heat insulation
Analysts can determine various possibilities based on the available information after the incident and rank them accordingly. Hence, they can conclude the closest possible root cause for the accident.
The Fault Tree Analysis helps organizations to establish safety and reliability requirements. Hence, it’s a critical part of reliability training. Hence, it’s widely used in industries with high-risk factors, such as aviation, pharmaceutical, nuclear, and chemical industries.
3. The 8D Method
The 8D method allows root cause analysts to accurately identify the causes and establish permanent corrective measures for them. This technique is commonly used in the automotive industry, where production lines often fail.
Its applications are far-spread in pharmaceuticals, healthcare, retail, and other industries involving automated processes and assembly lines.
4. Ishikawa Diagram
The Ishikawa diagram, also known as the Fishbone diagram, helps root cause analysts highlight the relationships between different departments of any organization. When problems affect multiple departments, the Ishikawa diagram can help resolve them by targeting each root cause separately.
For instance, if a factory unit produced a huge lot of defective products, the Ishikawa diagram could help analyze the problem by highlighting the dynamics such as:
- Possible scenarios for the defects
- Defects in the raw materials
- Human error in the execution
- Problem with quality checking
Every Ishikawa diagram is divided into six major categories:
- Measurements
- Personnel
- Materials
- Environments
- Methods
- Machines
Reducing Recurring Faults with RCFA
Root cause failure analysis helps organizations to reduce recurring defects because it ensures proper documentation of failures. As a result, it’s easier to analyze and plan for mitigating risks and previously occurring faults.
When there is a platform that helps you to analyze causes with automated logic, it’s easier to collect the right information. As a result, you can conduct further tests more accurately to restore operations and reduce downtime. More importantly, having documented information about the fault means you should never face the same problem again.
Conclusion
Root cause analysis is a pivotal part of maintenance and reliability practices because it gives more control to managers. When you can closely identify the causes of a problem, there is a better chance of ensuring preventive maintenance. As a result, such problems are least likely to recur in the future.