Root cause analysis

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Root cause analysis" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (October 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In science and engineering, root cause analysis (RCA) is a method of problem solving used for identifying the root causes of faults or problems.^[1] It is widely used in IT operations, manufacturing, telecommunications, industrial process control, accident analysis (e.g., in aviation,^[2] rail transport, or nuclear plants), medicine (for medical diagnosis), healthcare industry (e.g., for epidemiology), etc. Root cause analysis is a form of inductive (first create a theory [root] based on empirical evidence [causes]) and deductive (test the theory [underlying causal mechanisms] with empirical data) inference.

RCA can be decomposed into four steps:

• Identify and describe the problem clearly
• Establish a timeline from the normal situation until the problem occurs
• Distinguish between the root cause and other causal factors (e.g., using event correlation)
• Establish a causal graph between the root cause and the problem

RCA generally serves as input to a remediation process whereby corrective actions are taken to prevent the problem from recurring. The name of this process varies from one application domain to another. According to ISO/IEC 31010, RCA may include the techniques Five whys, Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), Fault tree analysis, Ishikawa diagram, and Pareto analysis.