A root cause analysis is the process of analyzing failures down to their root causes, which can include but is not limited to physical causes, human causes, and latent causes of the failure.
In the GE Digital APM system, elements of a Root Cause analysis store all the information necessary for the team to identify a root cause for failure of and asset.
When the Root Cause analysis is complete, it can be published and made available to users who are not members of the analysis team, allowing them to view the results using GE Digital APM tools.
When a failure occurs in your facility, there could be any number of causes that led to the failure. If you investigate the causes, you might find that each failure is caused by another higher-level cause. If this root cause remains unidentified, the failures will likely persist.
For instance, consider an example of a car that has had trouble starting every month for the past three months. In this case, you might determine that:
- In the first month, the cold weather caused the failure.
- In the second month, the battery was low.
- In the third month, the warning to check engine was displayed in the dashboard.
If you were to conduct a root cause analysis on the car, you may find that while each month's failure had its own apparent cause, the root cause of each failure was that a voltage regulator was malfunctioning.
To help you identify the root causes of failures in your facility, you can assemble an RCA Team that will:
- Collect data relevant to the failure.
- Analyze the data.
- Develop hypotheses about the root cause.
- Develop recommendations for preventing the failure from occurring or lessen the impact of the failure in the future.
- Implement recommended solutions.
- Track implemented solutions and re-evaluate them, as needed.