Root Cause Analysis

As a matter of fact, intermittence seldom survives Root Cause Analysis. Besides its emphasis on
preventative maintenance, Root Cause Analysis demands the finding of the true root cause. For
instance, a power plant's reactor tripped because of a bad power supply board, but what was wrong
with the board? The board had a bad solder joint, but why did that bad solder joint happen? The solder
joint occurred from constantly elevated temperatures in the room, but why were the temperatures
high? The temperatures were high because one of the room's air conditioners had conked out, but why
wasn't that fact discovered before it caused damage.

The fact wasn't discovered because there was no reporting procedure for temperature in the room. So
ultimately, lack of a procedure to report the room's temperature tripped the reactor. Once the
procedure is put in place, the air conditioner is repaired or replaced, the solder joint is resoldered, and
the reactor is put back on line, it will never happen again. Well, except that my simplification forgot to
follow the fault tree down the air conditioner to find why it failed, but assuming you follow that fault
tree too, you can be pretty sure that failure mechanism will never occur again.

Contrast this with the repair of consumer equipment, where the solder joint itself is considered the root
cause. If that stereo is returned to a hot room...

Root Cause Analysis is a troubleshooting process optimized specifically for sparse (very thinly spread)
intermittent.