Improved reliability has a cause. Just like a failure has a cause, so too is there a cause for improved reliability. You can wait for a failure to happen and then learn from the experience and change your processes to prevent it. That is root cause failure analysis. But it is not proactive behaviour. Such an approach quickly buries you in firefighting. It helps you fix a few terrible failures, but not the tens of thousands of defects that are waiting to create the next lot of disasters. Permanent reliability growth requires proactive methodologies that identify all potential problems and stops them from starting. This is what is done in high reliability operations – they never allow defects to begin.
The process maps of your business processes, the workflow diagrams of your operating procedures and the bills of materials for your equipment are the foundation documents for improving equipment reliability. They are used respectively to control the business processes, to control human error and to address limitations in materials of construction and parts’ health practices.
The Reliability Growth Cause Analysis (RGCA) uses team brainstorming to find ways to grow reliability in a business process or equipment part. It looks for what can be done to intentionally reduce stress and remove risk from a situation. A process map is drawn of the process, or work tasks, or for a machine. The map is used to identify every possible way to prevent failure and eliminate defects throughout the life cycle. Box by box, or part number by part number of a bill of materials, every identifiable way to remove and prevent stress, or to improve the working environment, or to eliminate risk to reliability, is identified. Details of the causes of reliability are listed in a spreadsheet, along with the required information. Table 1 shows the information required. Together the team identify the strategies, practices and skills needed in design, manufacturing, procurement, construction, operations, and maintenance to deliver lifetime reliability. A plan is developed to introduce them, including all necessary documents, training, and skills development.
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Reliability Growth Cause Analysis
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