Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
Tom Land, Cisco System
Register by Noon Monday, April 17th, 2006
Wikipedia defines Root Cause Analysis (RCA) as a class of problem solving methods aimed at identifying the root causes of problems or events. The practice of RCA is predicated on the belief that problems are best solved by attempting to correct or eliminate root causes, as opposed to merely addressing the immediately obvious symptoms.
Root causes exist and can be found. It is ultimately about continuous improvement. It is a guiding philosophy that says “find the real reasons for our problems, understand why they exist, and change the conditions that create them!”
About Our SpeakerMr. Tom Land has spent the last two decades leading process improvement teams in solving complex manufacturing problems at AT&T, Lucent Technologies, OFS and Trojan Battery Company. In addition to generic problems such as capacity, throughput, and shipping performance, these problems included diverse quality issues such as plating thickness, solder mask encroachment, open circuits, short circuits, delaminations, broken drill bits, registration, wrong hole size, optical fiber breaks, wrong color, and battery sealing problems. Even though the problems’ symptoms were diverse, the causes of the problems were similar and the problem solving approach was the same. Mr. Land has recently joined Cisco Systems as a Staff Quality Engineer. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech, a Masters Degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University, and an MBA from the University of Richmond. He is a member of the Greater Atlanta Section of the American Society for Quality and is both a Certified Quality Engineer and a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt. He served on the Board of Examiners for the 2004 Georgia Oglethorpe Award.
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