Five Things To Know

	Root Cause Analysis

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Root Cause Analysis through the eyes of management

When an organization elects to deploy some sort of problem solving approach in order to get a handle on its operational problems, usually someone besides the operations manager decides upon the approach to be adopted, even though the manager is probably the one most affected and who will ultimately be making most of the decisions based upon the results of the problem solving. Certainly the managers will be making the important decisions that impact budgets and bottom lines. So it is more than academic to ask what it is that managers consider the most important aspects of a root cause analysis operations problem-solving effort. Anyone charged with the responsibility for making a decision in this area will be well counseled to find out early in the process what the manager wants, needs and expects.

In the early 1980’s, as a part of a research and engineering study conducted by a leading not-for-profit organization, several hundred executive operations managers were asked what were the most important things that they wanted to get out of their company’s problem solving activity. There was remarkable consistency in their responses, even though the companies were diverse in both size and industry type. Those executive managers wanted to know:

· What happened

· What were the root causes of the problem

· What internal options are available that will deal with the problem

· What is the cost of acting upon each of the available options

· Which decision options will provide the most cost-effective solution

Now, over twenty years later, these are still the same questions for which managers seek answers when faced with operations problems. The REASON Root Cause Analysis System was designed to specifically answer these questions for the manager and to directly address these issues.

Root Cause Analysis - What Happened?

Often managers are asked to accept the opinions and assumptions of employees who attempt to subjectively identify the main causes of problems and their best solutions. Commonly, traditional root cause analysis reports to managers are stylized explanations that have been fashioned from personal opinions and assumptions. Sometimes the traditional analysis is right on; sometimes it is way off target; most often it is somewhere in the middle. In contrast, REASON is a root cause analysis system that interacts with the user to guide the investigation to pinpoint and validate the exact systemic root causes. The user and the expert system software become a team working interactively together to discover exactly what happened. Criteria for accuracy and logic principles provide a repeatable process that is objective and verifiable for finding the root causes. During the investigation process, the software automatically builds a model of the problem to graphically show just what happened and instantly generates in real time a narrative in plain English explaining step-by-step exactly what happened.

Root Cause Analysis - Causes of the Problem?

When a problem solving approach requires the user to rely upon personal opinions, instincts and assumptions to identify the root causes of a problem and its best solution, results can be inconsistent because they are so dependant upon an individual’s good judgment, intuition, job experiences, education and personal perspective. Without a repeatable process with criteria for accuracy, the differences between individuals can produce the most remarkably dissimilar and conflicting results. That is why with typical problem solving approaches it is so common for there to be a strong reliance upon meetings, debates and deliberation sessions in order to resolve differing and conflicting personal opinions on the causes and solutions to operations problems. In contrast, REASON provides a standardized, repeatable and verifiable process for uncovering and validating the systemic root causes of problems. With REASON, criteria for accuracy and completeness establish the root causes and solutions . . . not debates.

Root Cause Analysis - Prevention Options?

Root cause analysis, to best serve the needs of managers, should provide them with visibility of all of the available control and prevention options that are associated with the problem. If the analyst is permitted to report only the causes that he, she or some consensus group personally considers most important, and if the problem solving method has no criteria for enabling the manager to assess for himself the accuracy and completeness of the analysis, the opinions of the analyst tend to become by default the decisions of the manager. In contrast, REASON provides criteria that assure accuracy and that enable managers to verify accuracy, completeness and the validity of the option itself before allocating resources to any projects.

Root Cause analysis - Best Options?

Root cause analysis, when examining why a problem occurred, often fines that there is a root cause and an action associated with that cause that seems to be the obvious and best option for preventing recurrence of the problem. Sometimes it can mask the importance of other options. It is not uncommon to find that inexpensive options are overlooked or consciously omitted from root cause analysis reports because smaller issues that are not associated with the big, obvious systemic root cause are filtered out either by the analyst or the problem solving methodology itself. When given full visibility of all systemic root causes big and small, managers can sometimes opt to deal with near term control by applying a few less dramatic and less expensive options pending the budgeting for the larger solution. To gain the capability to make such comparison decisions, it is necessary to have visibility of the role that each root cause played in producing the problem. The REASON process guides the analyst to discover all of the systemic causes that were necessary to produce the problem. Unique quantification analysis enables REASON to objectively measure and compare options for anticipated prevention effectiveness, and thus enables the manager to maintain flexibility in response to problems.

Root Cause Analysis - Most Cost-effective Solutions?

Root cause analysis methods, traditionally have not provided capabilities to determine the cost-effectiveness of solutions. Subjective methods just do not reliably pinpoint causes and have no means to determine the effectiveness of solutions. Many times trial balloon remedies are associated with traditional root cause analyses. Those are the ones that are a product of someone’s best guess and that may or may not work; they are the ones that you have to try first in order to see if they do work. In contrast, REASON provides the capabilities necessary to be able to pre-determine your most cost-effective options: 1.) visibility of all of your options, 2.) validation of results so you know that the options deal with systemic causes, 3.) ability to measure the causal input of each root cause so that you can compare how much of the problem each represents, and 4.) ability to associate costs with each option. With a touch of a key, REASON calculates and compares each option and each combination of options for prevention benefit and cost-effectiveness.

Summary

In short, you will be able to pre-assess the success of your “Root Cause Analysis” decision, as-well-as how your program will be perceived by management by first determining how well your system will answer five basic but vitally important questions for your managers: does the system explain what happened, what caused the problem, what decision options are available to remedy the problem, which is the best solution and which is the most cost-effective solution? The REASON® Root Cause Analysis System was specifically designed to directly answer those management questions.

For more information, please call (903) 236 9973 or email us at DSI@rootcause.com.