Root Cause Analysis Quick Fixes: 7 Examples

Consistently recurring failures reduce an organization’s overall efficiency. Root cause analysis (RCA) reduces maintenance costs by alleviating chronic issues. Implemented correctly, RCA identifies the defect, categorizes causes, and uncovers cause and effect relationships between root causes and symptoms of the end failure. For many organizations, however, there are several reasons why their RCAs underperform.

Download our checklist to see seven of the most common reasons RCA programs fail and learn easy fixes to achieve an effective RCA program.

Root cause analysis reduces maintenance costs by alleviating chronic failures. Rather than treat the symptoms of failure, RCA saves on maintenance cause by addressing and fixing the root cause of a problem. Unfortunately, organizations often waste resources and labor tackling surface level symptoms that arise from equipment failure instead of the solving the underlining causes. This predictably leads to recurring failures and wasted resources.

Because recurring failures negatively affect an organization’s overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), RCA increases uptime and thus revenue by alleviating chronic failures. Additionally, RCA can be used after a critical failure to find the cause and prevent it from reoccurring. Preventing major failures not only impacts revenue – unplanned downtime can cost organizations thousands of dollars per hour – but it can also prevent injury and save lives.