What is BS EN 62740 – Principles of root cause analysis about?

BS EN 62740 is an international standard that describes the basic principles of root cause analysis (RCA) and specifies the steps that a process for RCA should include. BS EN 62740 identifies several attributes for RCA techniques that assist with the selection of an appropriate technique. It describes each RCA technique and its relative strengths and weaknesses.

Note- BS EN 62740 is a generic standard and does not explicitly address safety or accident investigation although the methods described in BS EN 62740 may be used for this purpose.

Who is BS EN 62740 - Principles of root cause analysis for?

BS EN 62740 on basic principles of root cause analysis is useful for:

Accidental analyses teams (e.g., in aviation, rail transport, or nuclear plant).
Investigative agencies
First responders
Government agencies

Why should you use BS EN 62740 - Principles of root cause analysis?

Root cause analysis (RCA) refers to any systematic process that identifies factors that contributed to a particular event of interest (focus event). RCA is performed with the understanding that events are addressed by understanding the root causes, rather than the immediately obvious symptoms. BS EN 62740 aims to reveal root causes so that either the likelihood of them occurring, or their impact if they do occur, can be changed.

RCA is used to analyse focus events that have occurred; therefore, BS EN 62740 only covers posterior analyses. It is recognized that some of the RCA techniques with adaptation can be used proactively in the design and development of items and for causal analysis during risk assessment: however, BS EN 62740 focuses on the analysis of events that have occurred.

The intent of BS EN 62740 is to describe a process for performing RCA and to explain the techniques for identifying root causes.

BS EN 62740:2015

Root cause analysis (RCA)

Current

Published:

30 Apr 2015