Metallurgical Consultants

Root Cause Analysis Procedure

The procedure investigates the failure using facts left behind from the initial flaw. By evaluating the remaining evidence after the fault, and information from people associated with the incident, the analyst can identify both the contributing and non-contributing causes that caused the event. 

Root cause analysis provides a methodology for investigating, categorizing, and eliminating, root causes of incidents with safety, quality, reliability, and manufacturing process consequences.

AMC collects the data, analyses the data, develops appropriate corrective action, presents the data clearly and generates practical recommendations.  Root cause analysis is a tool to better explain what happened, to determine how it happened, and to understand why it happened. 

The root cause analysis methodology provides clients specific, concrete recommendations for preventing incident recurrences.  AMC identifies the processes and procedures that need changing to improve clients businesses.

Understanding the existing data of the incident, the root cause analysis method allows safety, quality, and risk and reliability managers an opportunity to implement more reliable and more cost effective policies that result in significant, enduring opportunities for improvement.  These procedural improvements increase a business' capability to recover from and prevent disasters with both financial and safety consequences.

Root Cause Failure Analysis

Failure of a component indicates it has become completely or partially unusable or has deteriorated to the point that it is undependable or unsafe for normal sustained service.

Failure analysis is an engineering approach to determining how and why equipment or a component has failed.  Some general causes for failure are structural loading, wear, corrosion, and latent defects.  The goal of a failure analysis is to understand the root cause of the failure so as to prevent similar failures in the future. 

In addition to verifying the failure mode it is important to determine the factors that explain the how and why of the failure event.  Identifying the root cause of the failure event allows us to explain the how and why of failure.

AMC specializes in industrial product failure, corrosion, expert witness testimony, industrial accident investigation, materials and metallurgical failure analysis, welding, manufacturing,  forensic engineering, product liability, and explosion investigation services.  We have extensive experience in applying root cause failure analysis to solving engineering problems.