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Root Cause Analysis
Alidade MER provides investigative engineering services. Using Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and other methodologies, Alidade MER investigates and analyzes potential causes. There are always multiple causes. We always look for management, related roots as well as physical and human roots. The goal is to confirm, eliminate or assign probability to undeterminable causes. When all the underlying causes are identified they can be addressed to avoid future incidents. We have done engineering analysis and investigations on diverse issues:
- Caloosahatchee River, Ortona Locks and Spillway Manatee Deaths. Root Cause Analysis was used to determine the causes of several manatee deaths in a fourteen-day period. The analysis identified several causes including:
- Management root causes such as budget, number of people available, conflicting policies and procedures and lack of training.
- Physical root causes including damaged protective devices and damaged debris screen lifting equipment.
- Human causes included insufficient supervision, improper procedures and not following training.
- Vessel Oily Water Discharge at Sea. The crew aboard a vessel discharged bilge water that contained prohibited levels of oil while at sea. A Root Cause Analysis was performed and found several root causes.
- Management root causes included insufficient logistics planning, ambiguous and conflicting policies and maintenance procedures that specified incorrect detergents.
- Physical root causes included system design and installation errors, and use of improper bilge cleaning agents.
- Human root causes included insufficient supervision, disregard of procedures and circumvention of equipment protective features.
We provide training for client organizations, so they are confident and capable to carry out RCA without continued consulting support.
Reliability Engineering
Alidade MER supports a wide range of projects that enable or improve operations, maintenance and reliability. We can be hired to perform these services. We can provide training workshops and on-site facilitation and coaching. Common reliability engineering projects include:
- Hierarchy, Criticality and Configuration Management (HCCM)
- Preventive Maintenance Optimization (PMO)
- Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)
- Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) for processes, systems or equipment
- Reliability Modeling for New or Modified Capital Projects
- Lean tools
HCCM is often overlooked, but it is critical to maintenance management. Without organizing the asset database and determining criticality it is difficult to perform reliability and economic analysis. Many organizations have a preventive maintenance program. Some of these programs include tasks that add no value. Often these programs miss opportunities to use condition monitoring. Using techniques such as RCM and FMECA facilities and production systems can be studied and the most effective maintenance programs can be specified. Reliability modeling helps organizations design more resilient systems. Single points of failure and inadequate reliability can be redesigned. We can also help with Lean and Six Sigma tools.
