There are many ways of resolving problems but it is essential that you understand what you are resolving. It is at this stage that the problem needs to be examined in great depth and at Key Elements we use various management tools to ensure that we actually find the root cause of the problem.

If we look at a simple example we will see why root cause analysis is so important if we are to develop the most effective solutions.

A car dealership receives higher than expected levels of customer complaints about vehicle faults found when taking delivery of their new car. This prompts the question "Why?"

Obviously the garage is not checking the cars properly before delivery. "Why?"

The technician was unaware of a known fault during manufacture. "Why?"

He has had no communication issued to him regarding the fault. "Why?"

The service manager has not yet received the printed bulletin. "Why?"

Bulletin is being printed in Germany, not due for another week.

If you ask 'Why' enough times you will come to the root cause and in the above example the easiest and most effective solution would be to issue electronic bulletins that the garage could print off and circulate to staff. It is also easy to see how the blame could have stopped at any point in the chain and a different decision reached.

By using more than one style of investigation you can either validate your findings or even uncover a second problem. In the above example it shows that the manufacturer knew about the fault, so why did it not show up during prototype work? In cases like this you tend to find that a different part of the prototype was found to have a problem and was changed or modified but then that change had a knock-on effect somewhere else in the car's construction.

Now that we know what the root cause is we need to use imagination...