In our 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Training Course and in our TapRooT® book, TapRooT® Changing the Way the World Solves Problems, we introduce the Critical Human Action Profile (CHAP) tool to help collect more information to analyze any type of problem at the process task level. I like to call this looking at a problem at the 1 foot level as opposed to many investigations that analyze their problems at the 100,000 mile view only.
The tip here however, is “why wait for a problem to use CHAP?”
Identify, Evaluate and Improve before it is too late!
Using a very over simplified list of procedure steps on How to Remove a Fuel Pump, found on the internet, I would like to show you how to use CHAP proactively to improve Safety and Quality during a task.
WARNING: The steps listed in the demonstration example below on removing a fuel pump shall not be used. They are incomplete and not necessarily accurate.
Where to start? First off you already perform JHA, AHA, JSA, Observations…. So Going Out and Looking (GOAL) should not be new or require a lot more additional resources. The difference is that you will be utilizing your resources more efficiently.
1. Start by identifying a task performed by employees that are critical to:
a. Customer/client satisfaction
b. Product Quality
c. Project Timeliness
d. Employee Safety
e. Customer Safety
f. Environmental Exposure
2. Once the task is identified, list the steps to be performed like listed in the image below.
Note: Do not forget to use the Basic Cause Category Procedure in our TapRooT® Root Cause Tree to look for missing best practices as well when listing the steps.
3. Identify each step of the task that is critical to the items listed in step 1 criteria of this article.
Which steps listed above for the fuel pump removal do you think would be listed as critical?
4. For each critical step in the task perform a CHAP Profile.
Note: For each of the items listed below, do not forget to include the Best Practices listed under the Human Engineering Basic Cause Category in our TapRooT® Root Cause Tree.
Students are working hard … In just two days they will learn the advanced techniques that are the standard part of any TapRooT® investigation and root cause analysis.
Don’t have time to go out at night and see a fun Vegas show during our 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit? Don’t worry; we’re staying at the Flamingo Hotel, which offers you fun, music, and a whole lot of laughs without having to leave the building! Take a look at these shows and their descriptions, all located at the Flamingo Las Vegas!
DIRK ARTHUR
O’Sheas Theatre
Price $22.95, $33.95
7:30 PM
Dirk Arthur’s high-energy Wild Magic show combines comedy, dance, magic, and large uncaged exotic cats at 10-40 feet away.
DONNY & MARIE IN LAS VEGAS AT THE FLAMINGO
The Flamingo Showroom
Price $260; $125; $109; $95 (plus taxes and fees)
7:30 PM
Donny and Marie Osmond rock this 90-minute show with their greatest hits and a multimedia production.
GEORGE WALLACE LIVE AT THE FLAMINGO LAS VEGAS
The Flamingo Showroom
Price $49.95 plus tax & fees
10:00 PM
Wallace is the winner out of 150 competitors of the stand-up comedy TV special “The Big Laugh-Off,” reading audiences like a book and cracking them up with his humor drawn from everyday life.
NATHAN BURTON
The Flamingo Showroom
Price $34.00 General Admission, $44.00 VIP + taxes/fees
4:00 PM
Relax after the Summit on Friday afternoon with Burton’s fast-paced comedy and magic show.
Vinnie Favorito is an infamous “roaster”with no pre-planned skits or notes. He wins audiences over with his off-the-cuff quips and hilarious digs on his audience members.
“…your jaw aches from laughter…your side hurts…devastatingly funny!” Jerry Fink, Las Vegas Sun
“Rickles with venom” Milton Berle Best Comedian in Las Vegas – Guest Pick, Las Vegas Review Journal
ARP Colpatria hosted a 3-Day TapRooT® and Equifactor® Root Cause Analysis and Equipment Troubleshooting course this week. They had a great class with lots of learning, with some fun thrown in for good measure.
Here’s some creative solutions during the Marble Drop game:
It’s the Ken and Ken show here in Houston! Ken Turnbull and I are teaching a great group here at the Four Points Hotel in Memorial City. Great turnout, and an outgoing class. Ken T is teaching the class about Generic Causes. Trust me, he is NOT sending a bad student out into the hall!
A license to use the TapRooT® Enterprise Software is an investment in improved root cause analysis. To realize the most from that investment requires thought and support for the software installation and maintenance.
Who is the software guru at your site? Have they been trained in the software administrator features of the TapRooT® Enterprise Software?
Once a year, the TapRooT® Software Program Manager – Dan Verlinde – teaches a course to help TapRooT® Software Administrators and Program Managers get the most from their software investment.
is being held just prior to the TapRooT® Summit in Las Vegas on February 27-28.
Here is the course outline:
Day One
• Review of the TapRooT® Process
• Software Interface and Basic Functionality
o Documents and Data Separation
o Security and Login
o Left Menu Structure
• Creating and Managing an Investigation
o Recording Incident Data
o Locations and Classifications
o Team Members (Security)
o Custom Details Fields
• TapRooT® Techniques
o SnapCharT®
o Causal Factors
o Root Cause Tree®
o Corrective Action and Corrective Action Helper®
o Corrective Action Status
oOptional Techniques
• Retrieving Data
o Search Function
o Investigation/Audit Reports
o Macro Reports
o Using Single User Software
• End of Day Review – Software Trivia
Day Two
• Introduction
o Course Outline and Objectives
• Business Analysis
o General Challenges of Software Implementation
o Bridging The IT/Business Knowledge Gap
o Use Case: Definition
o The TapRooT® Use Case
o Software Investigation
• From Installation to Implementation
o Procuring Hardware
o Basic System Requirements
o Installing the Software
o Installation Vs. Implementation
o Lessons Learned From Dvorak
o How To Generate Momentum
o Developing an Implementation Strategy
o Exercise One
• Administrative Tools
o User/Group Authorizations
§ Node Level Security for Groups and Individuals
§ Email Notification Subscription
§ Exercise Two
o User Import Tools
§ Exercise Three
o List Hierarchies
§ Locations
§ Classifications
§ Equipment
§ Departments
§ Numbering Scheme
§ Exercise Four
o Hierarchy Import Tools
§ Exercise Five
o Custom Details Fields
§ Exercise Six
o Email Setup
§ SMTP
§ Notifications
o Optional Techniques
§ Equifactor® Equipment Troubleshooting List
§ Change Analysis
§ Critical Huamn Action Profile (CHAP)
o Final Exercise: Configuring Your Company
o Available System Improvements Consultation Time
o Open Forum/Questions/Comments
One more note. If you are attending the TapRooT® Summit, you get a $200 discount off the course fee of $1095.
To get more information about the Summit and this course, see:
Here’s what some participants had to say about the pre-Summit courses they attended…
Then sign up for the Leading Performance Improvement Best Practices Track at the Summit. You will experience five great Keynote Speakers, eight Best Practice Sessions, and a final session where you will plan your improvements.
The Best Practice Sessions for the Leading Performance Improvement Track are:
How Pfizer Achieves Operational Excellence
What is Culture and How Do You Identify and Solve Culture Problems
What Does Management Need to Know About Process Safety Improvement
Designing Your Continuous Improvement Program
Developing a Fatigue Risk Management Program
Criminal Prosecution of an Accident
Response Lessons from the Joplin Disaster
TapRooT® Implementation Success Stories
But that’s not all. If you choose to, you can customize your Summit experience by choosing to replace some of these sessions with sessions from the other eight tracks, including:
Changing Behavior by Praising the 49 Character Traits
The Day 29 Miners Died: The UBB Mine Explosion
Developing Great Investigators
TapRooT® Implementation, Investigations, and Process Improvements
TapRooT® Users Share Root Cause Best Practices
The 7 secrets of Incident Investigation & Root Cause Analysis
Positive Contributions in Facilitation & Management Interactions
Investigation Process Best Practices
Working Across Languages and Cultures
Using Baldridge Criteria to Achieve Performance Improvement
Don’t miss the sessions that will help you develop a world-class performance improvement program. Get registered today. See:
This course is only offered once a year … so don’t miss out! You will learn advanced trending concepts that will help your management understand what their root cause analysis data is telling them.
How can you become certified to teach TapRooT® to people at your company?
Here the process…
1. Company/Site gets a License to use 2-Day TapRooT® Training Materials.
2. Prospective Instructor (the one who wants to become a Certified TapRooT® Instructor) attends 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Training. (This helps the prospective instructor learn the system and become an expert in using it).
3. The Prospective Instructor usesTapRooT® to analyze incidents.
4. Prospective Instructor schedules a TapRooT® Train-the-Trainer Course (call SI at 865-539-2139 to schedule a course at your site).
5. Prospective Instructor studies 2-Day course instructor notes (part of the license package that they receive when they license the 2-Day TapRooT® Training Materials).
6. System Improvements ships the materials to be used in the 2-Day TapRooT® Course.
7. On the day before the 2-day course, one of System Improvements’ instructors will arrive to work with the Prospective Instructor. The Prospective Instructor will dry run the sections of the course that they plan to teach (they will teach approximately 50% of the course). The System Improvements TapRooT® Instructor will provide them feedback on their teaching and tips to improve the delivery of the material.
8. The Prospective Instructor and the System Improvements TapRooT® Instructor will work to together to teach the 2-Day TapRooT® Course. The Prospective Instructor teach about 50% of the course (or 2/3 of the course if two instructors are certifying). The System Improvements Instructor provides the Prospective Instructor with feedback at the end of each day to improve their delivery of the materials.
9. At the end of the 1-day prep and 2-day course, the Prospective Instructor becomes a Certified TapRooT® Instructor. They will receive a Certified TapRooT® Instructor Plaque after the course.
10. To maintain their certification, the Certified TapRooT® Instructor must attend an advanced TapRooT® Training Courses (one of course offered prior to the TapRooT® Summit) and the TapRooT® Summit at least once every two years.
That’s the certification process!
Contact us by CLICKING HERE if you are ready to get started!
If you are planning your 2012 root cause analysis training, here are some things to think about…
1. Sign up your public course attendees well ahead of time.
We have a limit on the number of attendees in a course. Many TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Courses fill up. To avoid being placed on a wait list, sign up early.
If you are looking for a particular date for training at your site or if you have a particular instructor that you like best, book ahead at least three months to get your choice scheduled.
We are happy to quote your choice of an on-site 2-Day, 3-Day, or 5-Day TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course. Just CLICK HERE to contact us.
3. Get registered for the TapRooT® Summitand bring a team with you to help you turbocharge your performance improvement program.
Save $200 each when you register for the Sumnmit and a pre-Summit course.
Save $100 each when you register 3 or more people at once.
Save $400 each when you register three or more at once for the Summit and a pre-Summit course.
Save $600 each when you register 10 or more at one time for the Summit and a pre-Summit course.
I am the main organizer for this Summit and I know you will go back to work with valuable learning. We are so confident that you will be pleased by what you learn that this Summit is GUARANTEED. Something that I’ve never seen in any other conference.
Don’t miss out. Get your TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Training scheduled today!
Here’s one more perk to add to the list: We’ll be some of the first to enjoy the Flamingo’s new restaurant Carlos ‘n Charlie’s.
Owned by Carlos Anderson of Señor Frog’s and other favorite restaurants, Carlos ‘n Charlie’s is famous as a beloved family-friendly tourist stop in Mexico. Diners love its casual quirky atmosphere and fun-loving philosophy – not to mention the mix-it-yourself guacamole bar.
The Flamingo plans to open the new Carlos ‘n Charlie’s in early 2012, so get ready Summit Attendees! Their delicious Mexican-American menu is sure to spice up your stay in Las Vegas.
Outdoor mock-up. Join us at the Global TapRooT® Summit Week February 27-March 2, 2012 to see the real thing!
The new location will accommodate 340 guests, including indoor seating with fun and funky decor, outdoor seating overlooking lush gardens, and a long 40-seat bar. This is Carlos ‘n Charlie’s only location on this side of the country, so don’t miss it while you’re with us in Las Vegas for the 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit!
Ken Turnbull and I are teaching our 5 day course in Houston this week. Here are some pictures from this morning:
We have a good group and are looking forward to a great week. This class filled up several weeks beforehand, so if you wanted to attend and could not, sorry we could not accommodate you. We already have several courses in January that are starting to fill up, so if you want to attend, please sign up as soon as possible. See our course schedule HERE.
Tommy Garnett and I just finished teaching a great group in Lake Charles. Nice accommodations, good food, and an energetic class make the course just that much better.
It’s a beautiful day in Charleston but the class is hard at work learning to apply TapRooT® to find and fix the root causes of accidents, incidents, quality problems, and system reliability issues.
We are continuing to see an enormous amount of interest in TapRooT® from Latin American companies. Here are some pictures from a Spanish-language course in Bogotá.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Edmonton, Canada.
Historic Fairmont Hotel
TapRooT® instructor Michele Lindsay e-mailed us to share these photos of a recent 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Training held there. “Some of our bright and hard working students. They are definitely passionate about their role in solving problems!”
Looks like the cold temps and snowstorms couldn’t stop a great week with this group!
Believe it or not, we stayed home this week, and are doing a course here in Knoxville. We cover a lot of information in our 5 day course, and on Wednesday we cover our optional techniques. Here are some pictures of Ed teaching our Equifactor® equipment troubleshooting lesson and students learning the equipment tables:
Join us for the next course, see the schedule HERE.
Practical Solutions Group sent these photos of teams working on an exercise at a recent 5-Day Root Cause Analysis Course held for NRW in Perth, Australia.
As usual, reports from the course were very positive about how TapRooT® can help the participants stop problems both reactively and proactively.
For more information about 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Training, see:
Did you know that right down the street from our 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit hotel (the Flamingo Las Vegas) is one of the largest malls in America? The Fashion Show Mall is home to over 250 shops and restaurants, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, Coach, and an Apple Store.
Restaurants include a diversity of treats like Johnny Rocket’s, Maggiano’s Little Italy, The Capital Grille, and Crazy Crepes. Don’t miss tried-and-true favorites like Starbucks, Auntie Anne’s, Sbarro, and California Pizza Kitchen for more casual fare.
Each weekend the mall hosts fashion shows all afternoon, so don’t forget to take advantage of that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity after the Summit Golf Tournament on Friday.
Whether you want to snag a souvenir, eat some familiar food, or pick up that pair of socks and iPhone charger you forgot, be sure to visit Las Vegas’ Fashion Show Mall during your time at the 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit.
We held an Advanced TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Course last week in Bogotá. We had a great showing, and it looks like they had a great time learning TapRooT®.
Here’s a class picture:
and a picture of our instructors and course planner: (Nelson Suarez, Diana Munévar, Piedad Colmenares, and Marco Flores)
The class is hard at work:
and working on exercises:
Let us know if you are interested in learning the TapRooT® techniques, anywhere in the world.
These are from the most recent course in Perth sponsored by PSG. People are hard at work understanding what happened in an incident by using the SnapCharT® technique.
And if you want to attend a public course somewhere else in the world, see the schedule here:
Even a rare Texas earthquake does not deter our students from their mission; solving problems and improving performance in their organizations. Here are some pictures of them working on their final course exercise:
All of our courses end with a final exercise using incidents students bring from their facilities. We find that is a perfect way to wrap-up each course and gives attendees a chance to use and show off what they learned. Why not join us for a future course?
Another great on site course. The pictures below are of people practice the new SnapCharT® skills that they have learned to help them collect information and understand what happened during an incident. Understanding what happened is the first step to a complete understanding of the causes of a problem.
For more info on TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis Training, see:
This is the 3rd of 3 sessions of TapRooT® classes hosted by Hess Oil and Gas in Kuala Lumpur. This final class includes the basics of using TapRooT®, plus an additional day dedicated to using the Equifactor® module for equipment troubleshooting.
Let us know if you are interested in any of these courses. We can teach just about anywhere!
Hess has continued their TapRooT® training this week with a 2-Day Root Cause Analysis course:
Hess will continue with a final 3-Day course, which will include the 2-Day TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis course, plus an additional day of Equifactor® equipment troubleshooting training.
(VIEW MORE course photos from Kuala Lumpur here and here.)
