Author: Robert J. Latino, CEO, Reliability Center, Inc.

If you’ve ever led a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Team, you may very well know the frustrations of leading an RCA project. Being an effective RCA analyst is tough work! It is fraught with administrative, technical and political hurdles that continually erode our will to be effective in spite of these barriers.

As a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) practitioner, consultant, trainer, author and software developer in manufacturing, service sectors military, and healthcare, I have worked in hundreds of facilities around the world and trained tens of thousands of analysts, engineers, nurses, administrators and doctors. I wish I had $1 for every time I have heard “…our facility is very complex”, or “…you don’t understand, we are different from everybody else”.  When people believe that, then their solutions sets will be limited by their inability to challenge their own limits.

We recently conducted a study among RCA analysts, which was motivated by my own occasional frustration as a lead investigator, with all of the senseless hurdles that get in the way of real results. I wanted to see if other people experience the same hurdles, or was it just me?

We communicated with a small pool of RCA analysts to find out what ticks them off the most.  For those lead analysts who want to do a great job and facilitate an effective RCA that makes a difference on the bottom-line, what gets in their way?

The results of this survey allowed us to compile this detailed study, wherein we first provide the responses and a summary of the hurdle and then a discussion about how to overcome the hurdle. Several additional references were provided along the way to put the microscope on some of the hurdles, which often occur more frequently and/or have a greater overall impact.

Read the full study and share your thoughts with us!

Here are some Tools & Resources to help you with Root Cause Analysis.