Root Cause / Cause Analysis
WD Associates provides highly experienced industry personnel to perform Root Cause / Cause Analysis services for significant events that have occurred at your facility. In addition, WD performs independent reviews and provides oversight and mentoring of the development and implementation of effective actions at your facility to aid in ensuring performance problems and gaps are identified before they result in a loss of production, regulatory compliance issues or personnel injuries.
Root Cause / Cause Analysis services include:
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Corrective Action Program (CAP) development and Implementation
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Root Cause Analysis Team support
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Independent Reviews of Cause Analysis
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Major equipment failures investigations
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Severe personnel injury/fatality investigations
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Training and Mentoring leaders in Performance Improvement and CAP
Assessments / Inspection Support
WD Associates provides highly experienced industry personnel to assist clients in performing assessments/inspections at your facility; we also perform independent reviews of assessments/inspections as requested. In addition, WD develop assessment programs to enable clients in identifying performance gaps and operational vulnerabilities at your facility.
Assessments / Inspection Support services include:
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CAP Program Effectiveness Assessments
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Training Program Assessments
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Safety Program Assessments
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NRC IP 95001/95002/95003 Support
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NERC Assessment support
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NERC Cold Weather Assessments
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Vegetation management safety event analysis
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Plant Operational Performance & Material Condition Assessments
Performance Improvement Mentoring and Support
WD Associates provides highly experienced personnel to help clients become more effective in solving problems ranging from targeting fixes for specific problems to overall integrated organizational improvements.
Performance Improvement / Mentoring and Support services include:
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Development and implementation of continuous improvement activities
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Support for analysis and resolution of performance gaps
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Performance Assessment Mentoring and Support
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Analysis of Safety Culture issues
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Organizational Effectiveness Assessments
WORLD CLASS TRAINING
Learn from instructors with extensive real-life experience across multiple industries, fundamental proven cause analysis techniques and best problem-solving practices. Our training courses consist of instruction and practical exercises designed to prepare students to conduct logical, fact-based, and organizationally focused cause analyses. These courses can be presented virtually or on location at your facility.
CORE TRAINING COURSES
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS FUNDAMENTALS 4-DAY
This class introduces students to using proven root cause analysis techniques and best practices to effectively solve consequential problems on a root cause level of effort to prevent recurrence.
The course content includes:
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Task of cause analysis including attributes of effective problem solving
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Fundamental Principles
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Equipment Failure Evaluation
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Human Performance, Programmatic, and Organizational Analysis
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Root Cause Analysis techniques
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Interview Techniques and Practice
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Safety Culture
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Final exercise that allows application of training to a real-world event
CAUSE ANALYSIS FUNDAMENTALS 2-DAY
This class introduces students to using a structured process to solve lower level performance gaps, including equipment problems, human performance errors, and process failures before they escalate into high consequence problems.
The course content includes:
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Task of cause analysis including attributes of effective problem solving
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Fundamental Principles
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Introduction to Equipment Failure Evaluation
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Introduction to Human Performance, Programmatic, and Organizational Analysis
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Final exercise that allows application of training to a real-world event
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MONITORING AND IMPROVING PERFORMANCE
This workshop provides leaders with tools, knowledge, and skills in driving resolution of performance issues in their organization. Classroom instruction covers gap identification, identification of drivers for those performance gaps, creating effective actions to resolve the gaps, and monitoring the effectiveness of the performance improvement effort. The workshop is an opportunity to examine performance improvement and organizational problem solving as a leadership competency, with practical exercises that focus on “what good looks like” and best practices for monitoring and improving performance
The course content includes:
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Gaps Identification
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Driver Identification
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Action Determination
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Results Monitoring
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Manager Role and Best Practices for Monitoring and Improving Performance
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Final exercise that allows application of training to a real-world event
CAP LEADER BOOT CAMP
This class teaches leadership skills and behaviors that ensure organizations effectively solve problems and learn from failures. This training is presented as an interactive seminar and provides a forum to discuss how leaders can more effectively champion a resilient organization that learns from its failures.
The course content includes:
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Aligning organizational behaviors around effective cause analysis
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Leader behavior and roles
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Fundamental cause analysis concepts
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Approaches for solving human performance, organizational, and programmatic problems
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Effective oversight behaviors
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Challenging problem solving activities and reports
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CONTINUING TRAINING COURSES
DETERMINING THE UNDERLYING DRIVERS OF EQUIPMENT FAILURES
This continuing training class is designed to improve the skills, knowledge, and proficiency associated with analyzing equipment failures and the Extent of Condition.
Cause evaluators have noted challenges in determining Extent of Condition and discovering organizational and programmatic issues for equipment failures. This class will focus on both topics with a goal of improving skills in these areas. The training outline is as follows:
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Review of the basic process flow of an evaluation, with specific emphasis on the Extent of Condition
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Determining Extent of Condition and regulatory requirements for Equipment Issues
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Basic principles behind the Equipment Failure Analysis (EFA) Form
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Discussion of EFA Form questions
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Basic principles behind the Organizational and Programmatic (O&P) Form
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Discussion of the O&P Form questions
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Case Study of an Equipment Failure Root Cause Analysis
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IDENTIFYING AND MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL RISK FOLLOWING SIGNIFICANT EVENTS
This continuing training class is designed to improve the skills, knowledge, and proficiency associated with analyzing the Extent of Condition and Extent of Cause of an event.
The course content includes classroom discussion and practical exercises. The training outline is as follows:
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Review of the basic process flow of an evaluation, with specific emphasis on the Extent of Condition and Extent of Cause
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Fundamentals of managing risk following a significant event
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Basic principles associated with the Extent of Condition
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Basic principles associated with the Extent of Cause
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Understanding the differences between Extent of Condition and Extent of Cause
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WHAT PEOPLE SAY
The class provided some great techniques for handling a root cause as a project which I will utilize to remain more organized. Also, the interviewer skills learned will absolutely be utilized.
It was nice to have perspective from multiple plants and experience levels.
Keep these classes small. I think the smaller classroom setup, especially virtually, was a HUGE asset here. Great discussions over the last few days.