Abstract: No matter what Root Cause Analysis (RCA) process that your firm has decided upon, "What is considered a successful RCA effort?" Are we content to eliminate the risk of recurrence of another such event? Or is there a higher order at play in which the goal should focus on the knowledge transfer of the success to others in the company who could benefit? We explore what the expectations should be for your RCA effort in this article.

Let's set the scene. We have decided upon a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methodology for the corporation. Through whatever evaluation criteria we used, we established a disciplined approach that will be implemented throughout the company. This is well intentioned because we want everyone to be using a consistent and uniform process to improve the communication of results.

However, our steering team ponders the question of, "What is our overall goal for the implementation of this effort?" Many would say that we seek to eliminate the risk of recurrence of similar events in the future. This is a quite admirable goal, especially when the events are the sporadic ones, which typically cause significant harm and damage within the company.

What about all of those chronic events such as bearing failures, seal failures, instrument failures, coupling failures, fan failures, etc.? While these events on an individual basis may seem less significant, when we look at their impact on an annual basis, we may reconsider that opinion. What is more important is these types of events are often considered a "cost of doing business" and even lumped into the maintenance budget under some general category such as "ROUTINE".

When we look at such chronic events, we should look beyond simply preventing recurrence and towards how we can let others in the company know about the RCA that was successfully conducted on the event. If we conduct a successful RCA on a certain mechanical seal failure and ensure that through the implemented recommendations that it will not recur, is that enough?

Such information should be put at the fingertips of others in the company who can benefit from it? It is likely that others in the company at remote locations have similar events and are probably solving the same issue that we have conquered already. So in essence, as a company, we are expending valuable resources to solve the same thing over and over again. This is time and resource consuming when we cannot afford to waste either.

So how can this "knowledge transfer" occur efficiently and effectively? The obvious common denominator to communicating with remote locations within a single company is the shared network server. Our RCA reports can be posted in designated areas for others to see. The next level would involve having such successful RCA's put into a database format whereas interested parties could search the database for related analyses to problems they are experiencing. The overall goal would be to ensure that the people that are having failures at their sites, also have the information to resolve these issues at their fingertips.

When implementing RCA company-wide, our perspective must encompass a bigger picture. If RCA is only being used for incident investigations of sporadic events, or the "political failures of the day", then our scope may not be as broad. Even so, incident investigations typically do have a certain report distribution route because of the nature of the events having safety implications. The same cannot be said for the chronic issues which are often viewed as insignificant and a cost of doing business.

When you look at your current RCA effort, are you optimizing the value of the analysis information within your company?