I’ve attended many morning production meetings that start with the question:

“What happened?”

With every breakdown, time is of the essence. The plant manager is quick to demand effective action to stop the bleeding. Early responders are focused on the asset, the conditions of the breakdown, immediate response, early diagnostics, and the actions taken to restore the asset back to working condition. Maintainers, engineers, and inventory managers get rewarded for their actions even though quality may be compromised and customer delivery times disrupted. Here we have Superman to the Rescue!

Back to the morning production meeting. Too many times someone in the room recalls a time when this same breakdown on the same asset occurred in the past. Really? Why? That’s the real question. As Albert Einstein so eloquently said:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”

Throughout my personal and professional life I’ve focused on a similar but very different question:

“Why did this happen?”

This question drove me to adopt a different perspective. I don’t want to deal with the same problem over and over again! My frustration prompted an intense investigation that led me to the reality of cause-and-effect. I now live according to this principle. I adopted a Root Cause Analysis approach that I use in all areas of my life.

I agree that a breakdown that jeopardizes production justifies a quick response to get assets up-and-running again. The fatal flaw is that the initial fix is considered the final fix. It’s not. That’s why these breakdowns recur. This tells me that we’re fixing symptoms of a problem, not the root cause.

Let me share two important things I’ve learned about symptoms and root cause —

One root cause generates more than one symptom. Symptoms multiply exponentially as we move through an end-to-end process from beginning to end.

Identify the root cause of breakdown as early in an end-to-end process as possible. You’ll drive out more symptoms.

If the root cause of a breakdown is within your control of technology, people skills, or internal business processes, you can eliminate the root cause. If the root cause is not within your control, then you must take actions to mitigate the business risk of the root cause to reduce the risk the root cause imposes on your business. Discipline is required. Proven methodologies are available.

Let me caution you that diagnosing the root cause of breakdown and failure is a mind-bending piece of analysis. But it’s worth it! The benefits to driving out defects by eliminating root cause or mitigating business risk are huge. The costs to execute this short term plan for performance improvement that emerges from your diagnostic are minimal. Here we have the Sleuth!

Let me share one last piece of wisdom with you. The assumption underlying the above discussion on root cause is that we’re dealing with physical assets. True. In my management consulting practice, Datamasters, we use root cause analysis to drive out defects embedded in end-to-end business processes. It’s vital part of our proven methodology that’s designed to improve performance and drive benefits to the bottom line. The benefits are equally huge!

Good luck! If you’d like to explore the principle of root cause further, contact me. I’d love to hear from you!