McGraw-Hill Inc.,US Root Cause Analysis: Simplified Tools and Techniques

Very practical Root Cause Analysis book that my business trainees report is highly valuable. I purchase large quantities this Root Cause Analysis book through ASQ discounts for all my classes.

Nice book. Well articulated. Worth it for personal collection.

This is a very good basic walkthrough of the principles and tools of root cause analysis. It is ideal for a reader with no experience of the subject. Those with previous experience may find it too simplistic.My first impression of this book was not good, probably because of its large A4 size and the use of large fonts and lots of white space. It is 150 pages long but somehow the A4 size makes it seem shorter. However, on reading it I was very impressed. It is ideal for someone with no or very little experience of root cause analysis as an introduction to the subject.The authors explain their idea for this book in the Preface. It is intended to start from scratch and then to gradually introduce the basic skills of root cause analysis. It does not discuss how to eliminate the root cause once it is found. The book introduces many different root cause analysis tools, illustrated with examples from generic business problems. It is not all about engineering problems. It is not intended to be an academic book and, unlike some root cause analysis books, does not have references to academic literature in the text.The book’s layout is very structured. The A4 size allows a lot of white space and a reasonably sized font. Each page has a list of all the chapter titles listed on the left-hand-side for even pages and the right-hand-side for odd pages with a large arrow pointing to the current chapter. This allows the reader to flip through the pages either forwards or backwards and immediately find the chapter of interest. The chapters in the list are: Problem solving; Root cause analysis; Problem understanding; Possible cause generation and consensus reaching; Problem and cause data collection; Possible cause analysis; Cause-and-effect analysis; Tool selection; Cause Business Quality Travel. Each page has a title. The top half of each page gives the key concepts of this title, almost to the point of keywords. The bottom half of each page uses examples, often in a smaller font, to explain the concepts.Topics covered include: Using flowcharts; Spider charts; Performance matrices; Brainstorming; Paired comparisons; Check sheets; Histograms; Pareto charts; Scatter charts; Relations diagrams; Affinity diagrams; Cause-and-effect charts (aka Ishikawa/Fishbone); Matrix diagrams; Five whys.Example pageIn Chapter 1 “Problem Solving”, the first page is titled “Definition of a Problem”. The top part of the page gives definitions of the word problem and them describes two important characteristics of a problem. The bottom part of the page discusses the types of problem in more detail.Example pageIn Chapter 6 “Tools for Possible Cause Analysis”, the seventh page is titled “The Purpose and Application of Pareto Charts”. The top part of the page discusses what Pareto charts are and their usefulness. The bottom part of the page gives the origin and use of the Pareto chart. The four pages that follow this page give more detail: “Steps in Using Pareto Charts”; “Example Cat Studio Pareto Chart”; “Checklist for Pareto Charts”; Pareto Chart Template”.Although this is very much a book to be methodically worked through and it has the careful structure of a teaching aid, there are no exercises, just examples. Experienced readers will probably discover that not all of their favourite root cause analysis tools are mentioned or that the discussion of histograms is boring. This book is not aimed at them. This book would be useful for an experienced user to give to those with no experience allowing the experienced user to help them as they work through it.

Covered the basics well. Easy to read. Written in an easy to follow process. Good resource for many analytical applications.

Useful addition