About Root Cause Categories and Collections

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Create structured root cause analysis categories to help your maintenance team consistently document and analyze asset failures. Each category represents a general problem area. For example: Mechanical, Electrical, Environmental, Human Error, etc.

An organization can have a maximum of 50 root cause analysis categories.

Within each category, you set up the following groups of options:

Group	Description
Problem Types	The kind of problem, but not the specific point of failure (e.g., component wear, vibration, temperature extremes).
Failures	The specific component or system that failed (i.e., what broke).
Causes	The underlying reason or condition that led to the failure (i.e., why it broke).
Actions	The work you do to repair the asset and get it back online (i.e., how it was fixed).

Each category can have a maximum of 500 options.

When a technician starts a root cause analysis for an asset failure, they document the problems that occurred by choosing from the categories and options you set up.

Example: Documenting a Bearing Failure

Let's say a machine goes offline due to a bearing issue. A technician would document the failure by selecting options from a preconfigured category:

• Category: Mechanical

  • Problem Type: Component wear
  • Failure: Bearing surface degraded
  • Cause: Contaminated lubricant
  • Actions: Cleaned lubrication system, replaced bearing

This structured approach lets technicians capture complete and consistent data for every asset failure, which helps your organization:

• Identify recurring issues.
• Make data-driven maintenance decisions.
• Prevent future failures.

Tips for Setting Up Root Cause Categories

Name Categories and Options Carefully

Create general categories with clear scopes. Choose clear, specific, and jargon-free option names. A category should have a clear scope so it's obvious when a technician should choose it. But it should also be general enough to include all of the options you need for Problem Types, Failures, Causes, and Actions.

tip

Involve experienced technicians when you create categories and options. They'll be able to suggest names that resonate with the maintenance team, and spot potential sources of confusion.

Start With Common Asset Failures

Instead of trying to come up with a comprehensive set of categories and options right away, start small. Add the ones you need to document the most common issues in your facility and make sure they work for technicians before adding more.

Limit the Number of Choices

Try to keep the number of options per column as low as you can. Technicians should be able to easily choose the right Problem Types, Failures, Causes, and Actions to document a problem. Too many options can be overwhelming and leads to inconsistent reporting for the same asset failures.

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Collections can help you limit the number of choices technicians see by presenting only options that are relevant for a specific asset type or criticality level. For details, see Create and Manage Root Cause Analysis Collections.

Audit Your Categories and Options

Review and refine categories periodically based on usage patterns. Remove unused categories and options. It won't affect historical reports, but it will streamline the process of creating new ones.

Organize Categories and Options in Collections

Collections are subsets of your organization's root cause analysis categories and options. When a technician creates a root cause analysis report for an asset that matches a collection, they only see the categories and options from that collection. A curated list of relevant options helps technicians choose the right options to document the asset failure, and complete the report faster.

For more information about creating collections, see Create and Manage Root Cause Analysis Collections.

The Default Collection

Your organization's full list of categories and options is called the Default Collection. You build custom collections from the categories and options in the default collection.

Collection Criteria

A collection's criteria determines which assets match the collection. You can create collections based on the following criteria:

• Asset Type: Assets with the specified asset type match the collection.
• Criticality: Assets with the specified criticality level match the collection.

A collection can include more than one asset type or criticality level.

How MaintainX® finds Matching Assets

To match a collection, an asset must meet all the selected criteria types, but it only needs to match one value within each criteria type.

For example, let's say you create a collection with both Asset Type and Criticality criteria:

• Asset Type: Belt Conveyor, Bucket Elevator, Screw Conveyor
• Criticality: Normal, Important

To match this collection, an asset must:

• Have an Asset Type that is Belt Conveyor OR Bucket Elevator OR Screw Conveyor.
• AND have a Criticality level that is Normal OR Important.

So a Belt Conveyor with Normal criticality matches the collection. A Bucket Elevator with Important criticality also matches.

However, a Belt Conveyor with Critical criticality won't match because it doesn't satisfy the Criticality criteria, even though it satisfies the Asset Type criteria.

Multiple Matching Collections

An asset can also match more that one collection. For example, let's say you create two collections based on the following kinds of criteria:

Collection 1: Conveyors

• Asset Type: Conveyor

Collection 2: Main Production Line Critical Assets

• Criticality: Critical

And you have a Main Production Line Conveyor Motor asset that has its Asset Type set to Conveyor and its Criticality set to Critical.

When you create a root cause analysis report for the asset, the Root Cause Analysis form displays the combined categories and options from Collection 1 and Collection 2.