Defect Elimination

We use our knowledge and experience to investigate the underlying causes of why an equipment, or its parts, fail and find solutions that ensure it does not occur again. Nidhix can assist with establishing and implementing an RCA program that supports a sustainable continuous improvement culture for your asset.

Importance of Defect Elimination

Defect Elimination process have two major objectives: preventing catastrophic failures of critical plant production systems and avoiding deviations from acceptable performance levels that result in injury, environmental damage, production loss, or poor product quality. Unfortunately, failure will occur no matter how effective the reliability program is for the organisation. Hence, an effective program must include a process for fully understanding and correcting the root causes that lead to events having an impact on plant operating performance.

Why should I perform Defect Elimination Analysis?

The purpose of Defect Elimination analysis is to resolve problems that affect plant performance. It must not be an attempt to blame for the incident. The DE process involves a structured program to identify, analyse, prioritise, and resolve plant/equipment defects to prevent future occurrence and improve the overall reliability of the operation.

This investigation is not an attempt to fix blame is important for two reasons. Firstly, the investigating team understands that the real benefit of this analytical methodology is plant improvement. Secondly, people involved in the incident will adopt a self-preservation attitude and assume that the investigation is intended to find and punish the person who are responsible for the incident. Hence, it is important for the investigation team to allay this fear and replace it with the positive team effort required to resolve the problem.

Nidhix follows Henley’s eight-step process for defect elimination:

  • Find a defect: Encourage teams to tackle the most irritating defects. Solving these will be so satisfying that the team will be keen to resolve more defects.
  • Verify that it fits boundaries: Set limits on the defect elimination project, such as budget or length of time, to help teams narrow the scope of what is applicable and achievable.
  • Assemble a functional team: Teams should include cross-functional members, including people who can both fix the problem and prevent new future defects from entering the system.
  • Look for defect sources: Refer to the list of sources.
  • Eliminate the defect: For the most satisfying and sustainable program, the team members themselves should be the ones to implement the solution and not hand it off.
  • Document the improvement: All the recommendations/actions will be easy and captured with evidence. This will help communicate the improvement actions effectively to all levels of organisation.
  • Track the savings: Identify the means to measure the improvement as justification for continuing the effort. But make sure the work involved does not exceed the scope of the defect.
  • Tell the stories: Nidhix will create a story around each success to increase the program’s staying power. Henley suggests going beyond facts and highlighting the aspects that made the project interesting.