How Root Cause Analysis Cuts the Costs of Uncertainty in Manufacturing

Reap the rewards of a more reliable, data-driven shop.

When there’s a problem on the shop floor, getting production running again is usually high on your priority list. After all, every minute of unplanned downtime is a blow to your productivity and your bottom line, and a rapid response can do a lot to mitigate the cost of errors. But the work isn’t over once the immediate problem is solved. With a little more time and effort—and some help from the right technology—you can prevent this problem and others like it from coming back to bite you.

Root-cause analysis is a strategy that takes the long view. Emergency or incident-response processes exist to get you back on your feet—root cause analysis, by contrast, is focused on making sure the problem doesn’t recur. It can demand a longer, more in-depth investigation, but in return, RCA prevents a host of future costs and helps you build a more streamlined, efficient, and productive business. 

1. Limit waste and prevent escalations

Emergencies are expensive in any industry, and manufacturing is no different. Unexpected problems tend to emerge from issues that went unrecognized or unaddressed for a long time. As a result, these failures are not just urgent in the moment—they’re often exponentially more disruptive and harder to fix than they could’ve been if they were caught earlier. 

Take this idea even further, and the least disruptive kind of error is the one that never happens in the first place. This is the motivation behind root cause analysis: tracing a flaw or a failure back to its source means that the problem won’t happen again, but critically, it also means that the problem won’t get worse, or crop up at a less convenient time. 

That means a lower chance for flawed products that need to be refunded, recalled, or scrapped. Further upstream, it also means less waste of resources, including:

• Raw materials spent on producing unusable products
• Labor hours spent patching problems that will eventually come back
• Time spent on inefficient, trial-and-error troubleshooting

Root-cause analysis allows your troubleshooting efforts and repair investments to be as targeted and efficient as possible, so you return to maximum capacity quickly. 

2. Foster safety and compliance—and minimize penalties

Keeping your workforce safe is a top priority on the shop floor. It’s the right thing to do, and skilled employees are a valuable asset—keeping them safe and healthy encourages them to stick around, and frees them to do their best work. 

When accidents happen, root-cause analysis allows your shop to understand why. Mishaps can result from a failure to follow safety practices, an unexpected interruption, an equipment failure, an unknown feature of your materials or environment… the possibilities are, unfortunately, many. An RCA gives you the tools to re-engineer your processes in ways that reinforce and enhance safety. It’s also an opportunity to emphasize the importance of safety regulations and processes across your business, embedding them even further into your shop culture.

This steady, continuous improvement on safety prevents accidents before they happen, and goes a long way toward keeping your shop compliant with industry and government regulations. Developing safe operations may cost extra up front, but in the long term, reduces the cost of cleanups, settlements, and fines. A safe work environment also attracts top talent, reduces turnover, and minimizes the disruptions of frequent inspections and audits. 

3. Build efficiency from reliability

If your shop suffers an equipment failure—say the cutting edge on a lathe fractures—you’re suddenly operating at a lower capacity than you thought you had. Jobs sit and wait for working equipment to free up, or for the damaged machine to be repaired. Your focus will probably be on replacing the lathe’s cutting edge as quickly as possible, to minimize downtime and get back to business.

The lathe would, of course, need to be repaired one way or another. But spending some extra time investigating the cause of the fracture could pay dividends. The type of wear and tear on the cutting edge itself, paired with data on the lathe’s recent performance and product quality, can shine a light on options to get more life out of your equipment. 

By using a harder edge, machining at a slower speed, or changing your production process in other small ways, you could not only avoid the possibility of catastrophic failures, but also achieve more consistent quality in your final product. Your production process is more reliable, so you can rely on it more—your schedule needs less contingency time, simpler quality checks, and fewer rearrangements when things run smoothly. That means more efficient operations, and more productive uptime. 

4. Focus on improvement over finger-pointing

Uncertainty on the shop floor can create cracks in your workplace culture as well as your productivity. When things go wrong and no one has solid information, it’s easy to grow defensive and anxious. Nobody wants to be the cause of a problem, but mistakes are easier to acknowledge when there’s a concrete way to fix them.

In creating a culture oriented toward fact-finding and continuous improvement, root-cause analysis is an essential building block. It tells your workforce that you’re focused on solutions, rather than blame, and helps drive down the stigma that can come with admitting an error. Focusing on process instead of fault also eases the potential tension between workers, teams, and shifts, providing a clear goal to keep everyone pulling in the same direction.

The keystone of root-cause analysis is transparency.

Production processes can be multi-layered and complex. Tracing a production error back to its cause requires picking those processes apart and examining each step to determine where things went off track. Not every shop has that kind of visibility into their own operations—but with the right technology, any shop could.

JobPack is a lightweight, intuitive production scheduler designed to slot right into your shop’s existing technology environment. Its data collection and machine monitoring capabilities give manufacturers unprecedented insight into the nitty-gritty of their day-to-day operations. Use JobPack’s analytics to see real-time details and trends in equipment performance, job status, and overall productivity. 

With JobPack, root-cause analysis becomes a readily available tool in your shop management toolbox. Get to the bottom of what’s holding you back, and begin building a more tech-ready, data-driven business. Request a demonstration today to learn more.