Root Cause Analysis Tip: Save Time and Effort

The Nuclear Energy Institute published a white paper titled:

Reduce Cumulative Impact From the Corrective Action Program

To summarize what is said, the nuclear industry went overboard putting everything including the kitchen sink into their Corrective Action Program, made things too complex, and tried to fix things that should never have been investigated.

How far overboard did they go? Well, in some cases if you were late to training, a condition report was filed.

For many years we’ve been preaching to our nuclear industry clients to TARGET root cause analysis to actual incidents that could cause real safety or process safety consequences worth stopping. We actually recommend expanding the number of real root cause analyses performed while simplifying the way that root cause analyses were conducted.

Also, we recommended STOPPING wasting time performing worthless apparent cause analyses and generating time wasting corrective actions for problems that really didn’t deserve a fix. They should just be categorized and trended (see out Trending Course if you need to learn more about real trending).

We also wrote a whole new book to help simplify the root cause analysis of low-to-medium risk incidents. It is titled:

Using the Essential TapRooT® Techniquesto Investigate Low-to-Medium Risk Incidents

Just published this year, this book is now the basis for our 2-Day TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course and starting on Thursday will be the standard book in our public 2-Day TapRooT® Courses.

Those who have read the book say that it makes TapRooT® MUCH EASIER for simple investigations. It keeps the advantages of the complete TapRooT® System without the complexity needed for major investigations.

What’s in the new book? Here’s the Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: When is a Basic Investigation Good Enough?

Chapter 2: How to Investigate a Fairly Simple Problem Using the Basic Tools of the TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis System

• Find Out What Happened & Draw a SnapCharT®
• Decision: Stop or More to Learn?
• Find Causal Factors Using Safeguard Analysis
• Find Root Causes Using the Root Cause Tree® Diagram
• Develop Fixes Using the Corrective Action Helper Module
• Optional Step: Find and Fix Generic Causes
• What is Left Out of a Basic Investigation to Make it Easy?

Chapter 3: Comparing the Results of a 5-Why Investigation to a Basic TapRooT® Investigation

Appendix A: Quick Reference: How to Perform a Basic TapRooT® Investigation

The TapRooT® Process for simple incidents is just 5 steps and is covered in 50 pages in the book.

If you are looking for a robust techniques that is usable on your simple incidents and for major investigations, LOOK NO FURTHER. The TapRooT® System is the answer.

If you are in the nuclear industry, use TapRooT® to simplify the investigations of low-to-moderate risk incidents.

If you are in some other industry, TapRooT® will help you achieve great results investigating both minor incidents and major accidents with techniques that will help you no matter what level of complexity your investigation requires.

One more question that you might have for us ,,,

How does TapRooT® stay one (or more) steps ahead of the industry?

 That’s easy.

• We work across almost every industry in every continent around the world.
• We spend time thinking about all the problems (opportunities for improvement) that we see.
• We work with some really smart TapRooT® Users around the world that are part of our TapRooT® Advisory Board.
• We organize and attend the annual Global TapRooT® Summit and collect best practices from around the world.

We then put all this knowledge to work to find ways to keep TapRooT® and our clients at the leading edge of root cause analysis and performance improvement excellence. We work hard, think hard, and each year keep making the TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis System better and easier to use.

If you want to reduce the cumulative impact of your corrective action program, get the latest TapRooT® Book and attend our new 2-Day TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course. You will be glad to get great results while saving time and effort.