ABSTRACT
Failure analysis entails using deductive logic to find the physical and human causes of the failure, then using inductive logic to find the latent causes. From an understanding of these “failure roots”, there should be a path to the changes needed to prevent the recurrence of the incident. Much of the routine maintenance a plant or facility falls into the “ignored failure” category. The concept of root cause analysis has many interpretations. The physical root is the mechanism that caused the part to fail, and it may be fatigue, overload, wear, corrosion, or any combination. The human roots are those human errors that result in the mechanisms that caused the physical failures. In analyzing for the probability of human error, there are many conditions that affect the individual’s performance. The cost savings that result from failure analysis can be compared favorably with the benefits of any other effective system analysis
