Root Cause Analysis is a vital Lean tool to tackle any business problem. The Clarity Visual Management Root Cause Analysis Board helps your root cause analysis by facilitating you finding the root cause of the problem and providing a framework to support you coming up with a solution, all managed visually.
When problems arise in a process it is very easy to inadvertently come up with a solution at the surface level and miss the root cause, which will result in the problem resurfacing at a later date, causing delays and wasting both time and money. This is why it’s important to consider root cause analysis throughout your business problem solving to ensure that you address the heart of the issue. The Clarity Visual Management Root Cause Analysis Magnetic Overlay is a versatile solution to drilling down to the root of the problem, just pop it up on your magnetic whiteboard, assemble your team and follow the quick and easy steps.
The board itself follows the 8D process, which has been proven to be a simple but effective method to solve a problem.
Firstly, you need to assemble a team of the right people. These people should know or even work in the process where the problem occurred, as they will provide the important information required to solve the problem.
This one is fairly simple, define the problem in which you discovered it. In our example case, we are opting for a solution we can all potentially relate to; ‘my coffee tastes bad’.
This is a very important step. If you have a specific problem on your production line, you must contain it so that it is not still occurring whilst you are problem-solving. In our example case, we would suggest placing the coffee machine out of order.
This part of the process comes in three steps to help you to drill down to the root cause of the problem. This first part is the fishbone diagram which uses 6 ‘M’s to prompt discussion on what might have caused the problem and gives this meeting a collaborative focus, as you can see in our example below.
From this we discovered the beans were in fact out of date, so we then moved that problem into our 5 why’s box diagram. The premise behind the 5 why’s theory is that after challenging the cause with 5 whys you should have drilled down to the root cause.
As shown here from our example:
You would then enter the root cause in the D4 box.
Here, you would come up with a permanent corrective action to fix the problem.
This section allows you to mark when this action has been implemented. This will help to keep your team in the loop as to the status of the problem.
Possibly the most important part of the board is this section. How are you going to ensure the problem does not recur? For most production problems we would recommend that a standard operating procedure would solve this.
Often a forgotten part of the process, but most definitely an important one. In order to keep morale high, you should ensure to praise a satisfactory problem-solving outcome, rather than focus on the problem occurring in the first place.
Our Route Cause Analysis Board comes with bespoke options such as printing it to your own brand guidelines to ensure it seamlessly fits into your company’s current visual management.
Here at Clarity Visual Management, we consult with clients both far and wide about how they can use visual management to achieve their goals, exceed their targets and make financial savings which would otherwise be lost to waste. We work with our clients to create a bespoke strategy that ensures visual management is set up for success before providing specific, high-quality Lean products to sustain the visual management programme and make Lean work in the organisation long-term.
You can read more about the work we’ve undertaken with our clients by browsing through our Visual Management Case Studies.
Download our ‘Introduction to Clarity Visual Management’ if you’re unfamiliar with Clarity and want to learn a little more about our products and services.
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