Root Cause Analysis

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5

Exploratory Data Analysis

and Root Cause Analysis

As useful as it may be to use the scientic method coupled with the clas-

sic seven and other quality tools, a root cause investigator’s toolbox would

be incomplete without a method for forming the rst tentative hypoth-

eses. Exploratory data analysis (EDA) provides such a methodology. e

concept of EDA was created by John Tukey for using statistical methods

for hypothesis generation and searching through data for clues. Trip and

de Mast (2007) believe “the purpose of EDA is the identication of depen-

dent (Y-) and independent (X-) variables that may prove to be of inter-

est for understandi ...