Skip to main content

About Root Cause Analysis

Root cause analysis is a problem-solving method that helps you identify, understand, and solve the causes of unplanned downtime for critical assets. The root cause analysis tools in MaintainX® help you perform structured root cause logging for asset failures.

Adding root cause analysis to your maintenance program ensures that every asset downtime event has a recorded cause with supporting evidence, so you can:

  • See failure patterns.
  • Act on insights.
  • Reduce unplanned downtime.

Root Cause Analysis Overview​

To perform root cause analysis in MaintainX, you set up structured categories and options to describe asset failures. When assets fail, your maintenance team uses those categories and options to create structured, consistent reports.

Set Up Root Cause Analysis Categories​

Root cause analysis categories help your maintenance team document and analyze asset failures consistently. Each category represents a general problem area, e.g., mechanical, electrical, environmental, etc. Within each category, you set up options to further define the problem, what caused it, and what actions you took to fix it.

For more information, see Set Up Root Cause Analysis Categories.

Create Root Cause Analysis Reports​

When assets fail, technicians create root cause analysis reports. Instead of writing reports from scratch, they select the right categories and options to document the asset failure. This ensures that your organization captures complete and consistent data for every asset failure, so you can identify recurring issues, make data-driven maintenance decisions, and prevent future failures.

For more information, see Create a Root Cause Analysis Report.

View Root Cause Analysis Data​

You can see the root cause analysis reports for any asset on the Insights tab of the asset details. You can view and edit existing reports, and export them to shareable files.

For more information, see View and Manage Root Cause Analysis Reports.