Root cause analysis ...

• Determines the relationships between root-causes
• Simple tool to use
• No statistical analysis required

• Write down the specific problem completely - helps the team focus on the same problem.
• Assemble a team of SMEs to get to the root causes
• Keep on asking Why until the team agrees they have reached the root-cause or the answer provided does not have a WHY.
• Do not move into FIX-IT mode too soon - which might mean dealing with a symptom leaving the problem unresolved.
• Write down any suggestions for future reference.
• Avoid intentional or unintentional bias while answering the Why questions.

  When you want to find the root-causes of a problem.

• Help us to identify process variations or patterns that may exist in the data and trends overtime.
• Identify potential performance issues.

• When you want to see how your process has performed over a certain period of time.
• · Or when you want to see that the changes made by your process resulted in sustainable improvements.

• Be sure to validate the data collection process and any calculations used.
• Plot the time intervals on the horizontal or X axis
• Label the run chart the specific times when you have implemented changes to a particular process.
• Outliers - Investigate any single data points that are a long way from the overall average or median line. These are known as outliers.
• Trend - If you find consecutive points increasing or decreasing in value, they represent a trend which may warrant an investigation.