Original Date: 08/07/1995
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems’ (LMTAS’) Root Cause Analysis (RCA) program is designed to capture, code, and analyze design change information in support of corrective action plans and process improvement initiatives. The RCA system provides feedback to quality-related corrective actions in support of the LMTAS Quality Policy #1 (QP#1) goal of ensuring that “all engineering products and services will be correct and complete prior to release.”

In April 1992, a computerized system was implemented to ensure that Engineering Change Notices would automatically trigger the capture of root cause information. The RCA system was linked electronically to the engineering release system to automatically prepare RCA records for specified engineering documents.

RCA codes were developed to document and categorize the type of design change as well as the contributing cause, also referred to respectively as the what and the why code. More frequent recurring examples of the what include drawing versus part list discrepancies, detailed view changes, and dimensional tolerance changes. Examples of the why codes include insufficient analysis, human factors such as errors or oversights, and inadequate training. Approximately 40 of the change/cause codes have been identified and are being tracked for relative occurrence frequency.

Significant accomplishments over a one-year evaluation period include a 25% reduction in drawing versus parts lists discrepancies and an approximate 10% reduction in dimensional or tolerance changes. These reductions are a result of systematic improvements in business systems. For example, checklists have been improved to facilitate the identification of errors during the design review process. Improved technology has provided the capability to generate build parts lists from the digital data sets.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.