Symmetrical Group

Policies and Procedures

CORE BUSINESS OPERATIONS\CORRECTING AND PREVENTING DEFECTS

SG-PR-22-01 Identifying Root Causes when things go wrong

Purpose

Proper root cause analysis identifies the basic source or origin of your problem. Root cause analysis is a step by step approach that leads to the identification of a fault's first or root cause. Every system, equipment, or component failure happens for a reason. There are specific succession of events that lead to a failure. A root cause analysis investigation follows the cause and effect path from the final failure back to the root cause

Background

The procedure investigates the failure using facts left behind from the initial flaw. By evaluating the remaining evidence after the fault, and information from people associated with the incident, the analyst can identify both the contributing and non-contributing causes that caused the event.

Root cause analysis provides a methodology for investigating, categorising, and eliminating, root causes of incidents with safety, quality, reliability, and manufacturing process consequences.

The analyst collects the data, analyses the data, develops appropriate corrective action, presents the data clearly and generates practical recommendations. Root cause analysis is a tool to better explain what happened, to determine how it happened, and to understand why it happened.

The root cause analysis methodology provides management specific, concrete recommendations for preventing incident recurrences. The analyst identifies the processes and procedures that need changing to improve the business.

Understanding the existing data of the incident, the root cause analysis method allows safety, quality, and risk and reliability managers an opportunity to implement more reliable and more cost effective policies that result in significant, enduring opportunities for improvement. These procedural improvements increase a business' capability to recover from and prevent disasters with both financial and safety consequences.

Scope

Proper root cause analysis identifies the basic source or origin of your problem. Root cause analysis is a step by step approach that leads to the identification of a fault's first or root cause. Every system, equipment, or component failure happens for a reason. There are specific succession of events that lead to a failure. A root cause analysis investigation follows the cause and effect path from the final failure back to the root cause

Procedure

The relevant supervisor regularly checks defective product log for similar defects or problems and looks for common causes.

Takes immediate action to verify causes and act to rectify.

For more detail on this procedure please refer to the following

SG-PR-32-01 Incident and Hazard Reporting Procedure.

SG-PR-13-04 Change Management Procedure

Forms Relevant to this Procedure

F-Q-08 Corrective Action Request Log

Date published: 25/07/2013

* -25/07/2013 12:27:06 PM