How To Elevate Your Operations With Root Cause Analysis
in Insights - Last updated November 24th, 2022
Root Cause Analysis can help make a good business a great business.
Instead of firefighting issues when they arise, or tackling the same troubles time and time again, Root Cause Analysis allows a company to understand what happened, why it happened and how to prevent it from ever happening again.
“Looking beyond superficial cause and effect, Root Cause Analysis can show where processes or systems failed or caused an issue in the first place.”
That means getting ahead of the game. That means resource focussed on iterative improvements rather than resource focussed on getting unstuck.
Every misstep is an opportunity to elevate operations to new heights, you simply need to understand the where, the why and the how.
What Is Root Cause Analysis?
When used for quality improvement, or to analyse and solve a problem, Root Cause Analysis is a tried and tested approach.
Ultimately, it that helps people go beyond the issue itself and answer the question of why the problem occurred in the first place.
It consists of 3 distinct phases:
1 – Determine What Happened
Without first understanding what went wrong, you can’t begin to find a solution.
This could be a physical issue with an end product, a human problem of a missed stage in a process or an organisational fault where internal systems result in failure.
Whatever the issue is, it needs to be specifically identified through tangible data and evidence. This can either be statistical or anecdotal, so long as you are getting the full picture.
Once this has been collected you can pinpoint why things went wrong.
2 – Determine Why It Happened
Having isolated your issue, you need to understand the series of events that took place in the lead up.
That includes every contributing factor to the issue, or the conditions in which the issue occurred.
Whether the cause is internal or external, you need to hone in on the specific reason in order to create a viable solution.
There are multiple techniques for doing this including the 5 Whys, Event Analysis or a Fishbone Diagram.
From here, you can set the wheels in motion to reverse the problem and get back on track.
3 – Reduce The Recurrence
The last and most important stage in a Root Cause Analysis is preventing it from happening again.
Knowing what happened and why is only a short term solution.
Without effective change, the same issue will only serve to rear its head time and time again.
Instead, consider what can be done differently, how that will affect the impact and how the ongoing performance of the new approach will work in practice.
Think of it as a process of continuous improvement, where the company is always seeking to evolve and elevate operations.
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The Power Of Root Cause Analysis
Clearly, the true power of this process is not just in problem solving, but in ongoing problem prevention.
Introducing this shift in priorities ensures your company is on the front, rather than the back foot. Able to identify issues ahead of time ensuring any drops in performance are minimal.
Equally useful is evaluating your successes. Doing so allows you to identify where and why your processes are going to plan, unlocking the door for replicating positive performance at scale.
So how you can you unlock insights to implement root cause analysis?
By leveraging the power of Anthill.
Through clearly defined workflows, live dashboards and granular insight a glance you can identify issues, evaluate the causes and implement improvements with ease.
No more guesswork. No more recurring issues.
Ready to explore how Anthill can provide you with a foundation for root cause analysis? Schedule a demo today.
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- November 24th, 2022