Root Cause Analysis

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The Scientic Method

and Root Cause Analysis

e textbook explanation of the scientic method is “Collect the facts or

data.… Formulate a hypothesis.… Plan and do additional experiments

to test the hypothesis.… Modify the hypothesis.” And, an experimenter

should consider a hypothesis to be a “tentative explanation of certain

facts” and must remember that a “well- established hypothesis is called a

theory or a model” (Hein and Arena, 2000). is textbook example of the

scientic method is correct, but too oversimplied for use in root cause

analysis (RCA).

Before going into detail regarding the scientic method, there are terms

used in the scienti ...