A Root Cause Analysis Method for Industrial Plant Reliability Improvement and Engineering Design Feedback

Abstract

Root cause analysis (RCA) methodologies have been used worldwide to help preventing incidental events from recurring, contributing to avoid losses and worker injuries. A structured RCA methodology shall work as an efficient problem solving tool, facilitating proactive communication, documenting the most important and systemic causes of incidental events and also providing effective solutions as part of the decision decisionmaking process. From the industrial perspective, a RCA process shall improve the lessons learned from these incidental events for plant operation and also feedback engineering design, besides increasing plant operation reliability. This paper presents a practical experience using a systematic and structured RCA methodology on two actual incidental cases from an international air separation industry that demonstrate the mentioned benefits of this approach on plant operation reliability and engineering design improvement.