Root Cause Analysis

Pretium’s Methodology can be employed to identify the root cause(s) of failures and to predict future failure mechanisms.

With Root Cause Analysis you can:

• Identify root cause(s) of failure in systems with multiple mechanisms interacting to create failures
• Identify the cause(s) of intermittent failures
• Identify failures that result from both equipment problems and human error
• Identify alternative failure mechanisms
• Predict a nearly exhaustive set of failure mechanisms
• Reduce warranty cost and non-conformance costs
• Improve product and service quality

Root Cause Analysis begins by inverting the problem. In most inventive problem solving situations, we are trying to invent something good: a new or improved product, lower manufacturing cost, reduced capital cost, increased throughput, improved quality, etc. By inverting the problem, we try to invent ways for the system to fail. This is done by first building a function model of the normal operation of the system and adding failures as harmful functions. Then the functions in the model are inverted: useful = harmful and harmful = useful. Next a Guided Brainstorming™ session is conducted to generate ideas how to produce the inverted useful functions. Each idea is evaluated against available resources. A potential failure mode exists when all the resources necessary to create the failure exist.

Root Cause Analysis method is applied by conducting facilitated workshops with an experienced Pretium facilitator, Guided Innovation Toolkit™ software and your Subject Matter Experts. This combination is highly synergistic and results in dramatic increases in the number and quality of ideas generated.