Best practices for Root Cause Analysis triggers

When deciding on trigger events to initiate a root cause analysis (RCA), it is important to keep in mind your organization’s strategic objectives. Many organizations might have trigger events in place, but they are often poorly defined or infrequently reviewed for optimization. For example, consider an organization who has poorly defined RCA triggers in place leading to a high number of failure events that require an RCA study.

Two scenarios

A root cause analysis can be time-consuming; thus, it is not advised for every failure or unplanned incident. For failures where effects are minor or non-existent or they are unlikely to reoccur due to unique conditions, root cause analysis will not be beneficial. Managing a failure immediately following an incident and executing corrective action is also a different process than RCA. Only after the situation is resolved and personnel are safe should an RCA be performed. So when should you conduct an RCA? Failures that are recurring, systemic, and critical are the best fit for the in-depth problem-solving method used in root cause analysis. Below are some examples.

Triggers should reflect your facilitation resources – the knowledge of your facilitators, the financial resources and time accessible to deliver the fixes, and the availability of stakeholders to join the RCA investigation.

Triggers must match business objectives, and most organizations would typically include:

Production loss / downtime

For production loss triggers, periodically review to evaluate the benefit of performing an RCA versus the costs associated. It is possible that some no longer makes financial sense to trigger analysis.

Environment

Non-compliance with applicable environmental requirements can have serious repercussions for any organization as it can lead to a license or permit suspension.

Health and safety

If it is OSHA recordable, high potential near miss or first aid is required, an RCA investigation is required by default.

Frequency

Often, smaller failure events can go unnoticed and unaddressed. Accurately tracking the frequency of specific equipment failure will ensure chronic issues are tackled and do not drain resources.

Repair cost

Similar to production loss triggers, you must identify the level of effort that is required to resolve the risk concerning repair costs. In other words, a Cost-Benefit Analysis. Every time an organization investigates a failure event, there is a cost to the organization in the form of man-power and corrective actions. These costs should not be greater than the monetary benefit gained from preventing future occurrences.

Product quality

Reputation and customer relationships are critical strategic objectives for practically any organization. Investigate events that lead to any sort of complaint or loss of a customer/contract.

Simplified Field Report For Root Cause Analysis Triggers

The collection of evidence immediately following a triggering incident directly impacts the success of a root cause analysis. Implementing something as simple as a field report for triggering events helps record clues before they are lost, forgotten, or misidentified days after the occurrence. Critical data, like witness accounts or timeline of events, are most accurate within the first few hours of an event.

A simplified field report can include such things as:

Incident category
Date/time/duration
Equipment and location
Pictures/sketches/measurements
Eyewitness testimony
Saved parts
Work order number
Preliminary 5-Why

Conclusion: Consistency is key

Without clearly formalizing under what conditions a root cause analysis must be conducted, organizations will lack consistency in their maintenance approach. The larger the organization, the more important it is to have clearly defined RCA triggers. Consider how your organization currently conducts RCAs: Do you have defined triggers according to your business criteria? Do you have a system in place to review and optimize RCA triggers as conditions change? Do you use the same approach and tools in your RCA investigation? Root cause analysis triggers help ensure your organization investigates failures in an efficient manor based on criteria that affect your organization’s strategic objectives. Correctly defined triggers will maximize your organization’s performance by optimizing the time and resources required for problem solving activities.