OHSA and the EPA encourage employers to conduct a “Root Cause Analysis (or RCA)” when an incident or near miss occurs to investigate the reason why it happened, and to prevent a similar occurrence from happening again. A Root Cause Analysis allows an employer to discover the underlying and systemic causes of an incident rather than the generalized and immediate ones.
A Root Cause Analysis seeks answers to these four questions:
- What happened?
- How did it happen?
- Why did it happen? and
- What needs to be corrected?
Gas Explosion Example
Some examples of root causes for a gas explosion might include gas leaks due to aging infrastructure, poor maintenance, construction accidents, or pipeline damage; poorly maintained equipment due to equipment malfunctions or failure; ignition sources like sparks, open flames, and improper grounding; improper ventilation; and human error.
Root Cause Analysis Tools:
Tools for Root Cause Analysis include brainstorming and checklists for simpler events and event/logic trees, timelines, sequence diagrams, and casual factor determination for more complex ones.
FINDING THE ROOT CAUSE…WILL PREVENT FUTURE LOSS!
Download flyer: STOTW_1220_Root_Cause_Analysis Download Spanish flyer: STOTW_1220_Root_Cause_Analysis_esp
