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All organizations experience unintended variation and its consequences. Such problems exist within a broad range of scope, persistence, and severity across different industries. Some problems cause a minor nuisance, others lead to loss of customers or money, and still others can be a matter of life and death. Anyone will agree that in most cases, preventing problems is preferable to dealing with the consequences of them.

 

A typical RCA follows a series of six steps:

1. Define the event, succinctly describing the event or deviation that triggered the RCA.

2. Find causes, coming up with as broad a range of potential causes of the problem as possible.

3. Find the root cause, zooming in on the main culprit.

4. Find solutions to solve the problem and prevent the event from reoccurring.

5. Take action, implementing solutions to ensure that things stay that way.

6. Measure and assess to determine whether the solution(s) work and solved the problem.

 

When it comes to analyzing the possible cause to find the root cause, we work with our client through various analysis tools and techniques. Sometimes one analysis is enough; often several tools must be applied. 

 

The selection of useful tools is extensive; below are some of them:

• Five whys: which is the most fundamental of all root cause analysis tools

• Scatter charts: because causes at different levels often impact one another. A scatter chart can identify such links. A prerequisite is that each cause can be expressed by a numerical value. The main purpose of the scatter chart is to show the relationship between two causes or other variables

• Fault Tree Analysis: A fault tree is used to progress beyond the cause-and-event tree by being more specific about the connections between causes and the event.

• Histograms: A histogram, also called a bar chart, is used to display the distribution and variation of a data set. The data can be measures of time, pressure, age, attitudes, and so on. The histogram’s strength is in presenting data in a way that makes it easy to see relationships, which makes it useful at almost any stage of the RCA process

• Pareto analysis: Pareto principle states that most effects, often 80 percent, are the result of a small number of causes, often only 20 percent. Pareto analysis tries to identify these few causes, as these are likely candidates for root causes. The analysis can be carried out by using either a list of causes or a table where the causes are sorted, or by placing the causes in a chart.

 

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