Patent ID: 8594977
Filing Date: 2013-11-26
Classification: G05B

Abstract:
1. A method for identifying systematic failures and root causes of incidents, said comprising the steps of: identifying, with the use of a processor, at least one failure with respect to an incident and a root cause associated with said at least one failure in a work environment, wherein said work environments comprise at least one of process control, nuclear power, health care, military, and manufacturing, to determine systemic failures across an incident sample, root cause profiles, and root cause manifestations; identifying, with the use of the processor, root causes of said systemic failures by summing incident root causes relating to top failure modes and extracting said root cause profiles for said systemic failures, wherein said root cause profiles illustrate a distribution of said root causes identified for said systemic failures across said incident sample; prioritizing, with the use of the processor, an improvement solution to identify a high priority improvement solution and implementing said high priority improvement solution based on at least one corrective action for said at least one failure in response to analyzing said at least one failure to identify said systemic failures, said root cause profiles, and said root cause manifestations; and monitoring, with the use of the processor, an impact of said improvement solution on said work environment utilizing specified leading metrics and specified lagging metrics and a critical performance indicator to determine if said improvement solution based on said at least one corrective action prevents said recurrence of said at least one failure.