Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:
RCA and How to Understand the Basics of Component Failure
When performing a PROACT® Root Cause Analysis (RCA) there is a data collection step called ‘Preserve’ (or the PR in the PROACT acronym) which requires the team to collect failed parts, conduct interviews, obtain paper data and positional information after an undesirable event occurs.
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This article discusses five ways to effectively facilitate tree diagrams by conducting pre-session exchanges, asking powerful questions, using exercises that engage, anticipating disruption, and controlling the tempo. The foundations of systems thinking and facilitation apply to tree diagrams because the analysis requires a group to establish the nature of separate and inter-related components.
Facilitation is defined as a structured session(s) in which the meeting leader (the facilitator) guides the participants through a series of predefined steps to arrive at a result that is created, understood, and accepted by all participants.” As provided in the definition, the fundamentals of good facilitation are always essential, including having a structure for developing tree diagrams that include predefined steps and a process for arriving at results that are created, understood, and accepted by all participants.
A tree diagram is a management tool that depicts the hierarchy of tasks and subtasks needed to complete an objective. The finished diagram bears a resemblance to a tree. (American Society for Quality, 2019).
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So what does it mean to be ‘safe’? Is a company ‘safe’ because they have not had an OSHA recordable injury in say over a one year period? Does that mean they will continue to be ‘safe’ in the next year? Does it mean they are at a higher risk of an incident in the near term, because they weren’t safe…but lucky? These are the debates I read about online and as an outsider, I can see both sides. But there has to be a practical middle ground as Safety and Reliability depend on each other for their individual successes, they are interdependent.
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This article discusses five ways to facilitate failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) more effectively by conducting pre-session exchanges, asking powerful questions, using exercises that engage, anticipating disruption, and controlling the tempo. The foundations of systems thinking and facilitation apply to failure modes and effects analysis because the analysis requires a group to establish the nature of separate and inter-related components.
Facilitation is defined as a structured session(s) in which the meeting leader (the facilitator) guides the participants through a series of predefined steps to arrive at a result that is created, understood, and accepted by all participants.” As provided in the definition, the fundamentals of good facilitation are always essential, including having a structure for an FMEA that includes predefined steps and a process for arriving at results that are created, understood, and accepted by all participants.
Oftentimes, Production may not know the value of using Reliability tools such as Opportunity Analysis (OA) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to gain more consistent predictable production runs.
Most production leadership has never spent time in Maintenance and/or Reliability roles; therefore, they see a different big picture. The pieces of the big picture are interconnected like a puzzle and most production people see the puzzle assembled one way, while the Maintenance and Reliability people see the puzzle assembled another way.
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This article discusses five ways to facilitate root cause analysis (RCA) more effectively through conducting pre-session exchanges, asking powerful questions, using exercises that engage, anticipating disruption, and controlling the tempo. Root cause analysis requires systems thinking because most failures involve a is a collection of interrelated or interacting parts, including physical equipment, humans, and interactions.
Facilitation is defined as a structured session(s) in which the meeting leader (the facilitator) guides the participants through a series of predefined steps to arrive at a result that is created, understood, and accepted by all participants.” The fundamentals of good facilitation as provided in the definition are always essential, including having a structure that includes predefined steps and arriving at results that are created, understood and accepted by all participants.
In my travels over the past 35+ years talking to RCA analysts around the world, as well as those outsiders who look into our ‘RCA’ bubble, I find many misconceptions about RCA. This happens in every space, just think about RCM, RBM, APM, CBM and the like; everyone experiences how other people view their craft.
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In a recent article, I shared that every written or verbal communication needs a structure. Aristotle believed that every poem or theatrical performance should follow a three-act structure. The three-act structure stands the test of time in all forms of writing and performing arts. It is also a straightforward and extremely efficient structure. More importantly, it works subtly but effectively with our human thinking processes.
The three-act structure is alive and well in the series “Communicating with FINESSE” on Accendo Reliability. Act One – the Opening – frames what is to come in Act II and lays the foundation of Systems Thinking needed for effective communications. Check out the building story of Act One in these articles: The One Thing Your Approach to Communication & Facilitation is Missing, Effective Communication Is The #1 Thing That Changes Your Life, and Do You Know These Dirty Secrets of Effective Communication?
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The following article was published in Plant Services earlier this year with the title, “Don’t get stuck in reactive mode – The world of fantasy maintenance is calling you”. The alias of the author is Captain Unreliability, so all credit should go to the Captain:-).
To the veterans in the field, you will connect with this article in a heartbeat. You will be laughing all along the way. In the end, I will add a commentary about while this may appear comical, it sadly is reality in many places that we all work (or have worked). But I’ll leave that up to you, to be the judge. In the end, please relate your own experiences and let me know if this is B.S. in your world or not!
We had met at the same place, at the same time, and in the same format every month for the past six months. The team still had eight months to go to complete the master plan. For the past three months, half of the sessions included breakout groups where participants worked together to develop key aspects of the final document. Everything was being performed just like everyone had agreed in the project charter. However, the burnout could be seen in their eyes and heard in their voices…
A seasoned team had designed a week to do Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). We would spend a slow-paced Monday afternoon working through the plant overview and a low-intensity Friday morning reviewing what we had done over the week. Everyone was committed to an intense, action-packed middle three days where we would get most of the heavy lifting done. However, by mid-morning Thursday, it was apparent that interest was fading fast…
A Little History About How I Came Across Learning Teams.
A little over three years ago I was asked to speak at a conference that was entitled, Human Performance, Root Cause and Trending or HPRCT (great conference BTW and I encourage you to attend). This was a different world for me as I typically attended and spoke at Reliability and Maintenance trade conferences, but I was interested to see what it was all about (plus a good friend of mine was the one who invited me).
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I knew not to ask the question. I was almost certain I had heard the exchange correctly. I asked anyway, “Jim, I am not sure I understood you. Can you clarify that?”
“I said Ray is a dick,” blurted Jim at a tone that all 30 people in the room clearly understood. “He knows he is. He thinks he is being funny, but he’s not.”
So much for allowing Jim the opportunity to walk it back. Now, as the lead facilitator of a public decision-making group of twenty, I had to get things back on track. There was a deafening silence, only broken by a few smirks. Most of the group looked horrified.
Disruption is a reality. Disruption will occur. Great facilitators embrace the reality of disruption and are prepared to move through it.
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Think about the three best-facilitated sessions you have ever attended. I will bet the facilitator used some type of activity that you remember. The exercise was unexpected, exciting, and effective.
Now consider the worst facilitated session you attended. If there were any, the exercises were as boring and uninteresting as the rest of the facilitation effort. My bet is that standard PowerPoint presentations and a traditional sticky dot exercise were part of the worst sessions.
Engaging exercises are that draw favorable attention or interest. Some synonyms for engaging make the point better: alluring, appealing, captivating, charismatic, enchanting, entrancing, fascinating, glamorous, magnetic, and seductive. From experience, a facilitated session has a good chance to achieve its outcomes if its exercises rise to the level of ‘engaging.
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Put another way, Can RCA be successful without the incorporation of system’s thinking? What prompted this question was that according to Drs. Leveson and Dekker in their 2014 paper Get To The Root of Accidents, systems thinking is not currently utilized in the application of RCA.
In this paper they cite:
“An often-claimed ‘fact’ is that operators or maintenance workers cause 70–90% of accidents. It is certainly true that operators are blamed for 70–90%”.
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I recently presented a webinar for SMRP and Empowering Pumps, on the title above. There were several questions, post-presentation, that I felt were worthy of expanding on in the form of a blog.
Question #2 (of a total of 5)
How do you manage a situation where people just decide not to use simple tools like RCFA, just comfortable doing things same way? Even when you keep driving it.
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