Root Cause Analysis looks at all three types of causes. It involves investigating the patterns of negative effects, finding hidden flaws in the system, and discovering specific actions that contributed to the problem. This approach often means that RCA reveals more than one root cause.
For Example: If we're sick and throwing up at work, we'll go to a doctor and ask them to find the root cause of our sickness. If our car stops working, we'll ask a mechanic to find the root cause of the problem. If our business is underperforming (or overperforming) in a certain area, we'll try to find out why.
What Is Root Cause Analysis?
RCA is a structured facilitated team process to identify root causes of an event that resulted in an undesired outcome and develop corrective actions. The RCA process provides you with a way to identify breakdowns in processes and systems that contributed to the event and how to prevent future events.
Why RCA Matters In Risk Management
The RCA process is a critical feature of any safety management system because it enables answers to the questions posed by high risk, high impact events notably, what happened, why it occurred, and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
Top Tools and Techniques to Identify the Real Cause Behind the Problems
Understanding the basis of effective risk management. Root cause analysis tools help professionals in tracing their problems from origins to accurate, lasting solutions instead of temporary fixes. A further insight into the most widely used RCA methods and when to apply each one is provided here.
1.The Five whys Technique
One way to identify the root cause of a problem is to ask “Why?” five times. When a problem presents itself, ask “Why did this happen?” Then, don't stop at the answer to this first question. Ask “Why?” again and again until you reach the root cause. Examples: Most are familiar with the Five Ws for information gathering: Who, What ,When, Where and Why-adding in How for good measure (making it the Six Ws). Fewer are aware of the Five Whys which is a simplistic method of root cause analysis (RCA). This article explains the Five Whys, also known as a Why Tree.
2. Fishbone Diagram
A fishbone diagram is a visual way to look at cause and effect is a more structured approach than some other tools available for brainstorming causes of a problem (e.g., the Five Whys tool). The problem or effect is displayed at the head or mouth of the fish.
3. Pareto Analysis
It uses the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule), the idea that by doing 20% of the work, you can generate 80% of the benefit of doing the entire job. Take quality improvement, for example: A vast majority of problems (80%) are produced by a few fundamental causes (20%).
4. Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
The overall goal of FMEA is to provide insight into what actions need to be taken to eliminate or reduce failures, starting with the highest-priority ones. Failure modes and effects analysis is also used for continuous improvement. For example, FMEA is used during design to prevent failures before systems are built.
5. Fault Tree Analysis
Fault tree analysis (FTA), sometimes known as event tree analysis, is a method of identifying the possible causes of a system failure. A fault tree is used to graphically illustrate the different potential causes of a failure in the form of a diagram.
6. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a group problem solving method that involves the spontaneous contribution of creative ideas and solutions. This technique requires intensive, freewheeling discussion in which every member of the group is encouraged to think aloud and suggest as many ideas as possible based on their diverse knowledge.
7. Scatter Diagram
A scatter diagram is a graphical representation of a set of data in which the values of pairs of variables are plotted on a coordinate system. The tool is widely used in statistics and other fields of science and engineering to represent data relationships.
Real Life Examples of RCA in Risk Management
Two major Real Life Examples of RCA in Risk Management are:
Example 1: Manufacturing Defects
A large electronics corporation continued receiving complaints with respect to one of the high-end gadgets because it kept on heating up. Initially, they thought it was a battery problem; thus, the company replaced it in hundreds of units, but the problem persisted. Now what they were applying was 5 Whys, and they found out that: Overheating was a result of internal short circuits.
Cause: Dust enters into the system.Because the air filters of the assembly lines had not been cleaned for weeks. Why? There is no regular maintenance plan. The product was not an actual problem: it was a missing maintenance SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). They, therefore, revised the checks on their assembly line and saved millions in recalls.
Example 2: Health care safety
A patient in the hospital received medication that was wrong. Rather than just firing the staff involved, the team used a fishbone diagram and identified multiple causes: Similar-looking packaging, Poor lighting in the medication room, Confusing labelling system. By remedying all of these causes, it did not just solve this particular incident but rather prevented future harm.
When Should You Use RCA?
Root cause analysis need not be conducted only for larger failures. Here are several situations in which it becomes crucially important:
Recurrence of Problems: Repeated occurrence of similar problems
Unexpected Failures: A failure that results in severe consequences
Safety Incidents: Accidents in an industrial or healthcare environment
Customer Complaints: Regularly repeated negative reactions indicate a problem deeper than that. The sooner you can see patterns, the more breakable they are.
Common Mistakes in RCA (and How to Avoid Them)
Despite a powerful tool, many teams are getting it wrong. Here are some typical mistakes:
1. Blaming People Instead of Processes: RCA isn't about blaming people; it is about how to improve the system. When people are made to feel guilty, they will hide problems.
Fix: Concentrate on "What happened?" not "Who did it?"Jumping to Conclusions.
2. Many teams stop the investigation after the first or second "why": It creates solutions that only look at the surface.
Fix: Go deep-dive, do not stop until there is a process-based cause.
3. Not Involving the Right People: Workers tend to know much more about how things go wrong than upper management.
Fix: Always include people closest to the process.
4. Poor Documentation: If findings are not documented somewhere, teams will repeat the same mistakes later.
Fix: Record causes, solutions, and any follow-ups in a common system.
Best Practices for RCA Success
Here are four steps to understand the best practice for RCA success:
So Be Consistent: Integrate RCA into your everyday risk management business process.
To develop this capability of success, consider joining the Training Course in The Objectives of Risk Management in Facilities offered by the British Academy for Training and Development.
Train Teams: Educate the employees to understand the tools of RCA and to use them properly.
Use Data: Avoid conjecture and make use of numbers, reports, and real performance metrics.
Encourage Open Culture: A no-blame work culture will encourage people to raise issues at early times.