ABOUT APOLLO > FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS   

2. What kind of problems do you solve using Apollo RCA?

   You can use Apollo to solve any event-based problem. An event-based problem is any problem that is caused to exist. There are no “right” answers to event-based problems, only good, better, or best solutions. You actually solve event-based problems constantly throughout the day from the moment you wake until the moment you fall asleep at night. Here are some basic examples...
   
   

   • I'm hungry.

     What should I eat for breakfast?

   
   
   • I need to get to work.

     Which route should I take and what means of transportation should I use?

   
   
   • I need to get dressed.

     What clothing should I choose?

   
   

   Most of us probably wouldn’t use Apollo root cause analysis to find solutions to the problems listed above. But they are good examples most of us can relate to that show that event-based problems don’t necessarily have right answers.
   
   

   Here are some examples of more significant events:
   
   
   • We had an accident today that sent an employee to the hospital.

     What can I do to make sure this kind of accident doesn’t happen again?
     How can I make our work environment safer?

   
   
   • Our customer discovered a quality defect.

     How can I make sure that we find defects before parts are shipped?
     How can I reduce our defect rate?

   
   
   • Today an event caused the power plant to go offline.

     How do I increase the reliability of critical plant components?
     How can I maximize up-time?

   
   
   • We released a small amount of chlorine gas yesterday, but it could have been much larger.

     How do we prevent this specific incident from happening again?
     How can we make our facility safer for employees and our neighbors in the community?

   
   
   • A key employee left our company today.

     Why did the employee decide to quit?
     What can we do to increase our retention rate?

   
   
   • Our customer service department is overloaded.

     How can we solve individual customer complaints?
     How can we maintain a higher overall service level?

   
   Problems present themselves as independent incidents. But they are usually part of a broader systemic deficiency. For instance, a single accident can be part of a high injury rate involving several injuries over period of time.
   
   These are only a few examples of event-based problems that can be analyzed with the Apollo method of root cause analysis.

Have another question? Click here to ask us.