Root Cause Analysis

Going Out of Business!

OK, FOCUS isn't going out of business; but, while FOCUS Fire Investigations' main line of work is fire investigation, we would love to put ourselves out of business. Not by just closing shop or deciding to pursue another form of investigation, but rather by eliminating the need for fire investigations. One of the goals of any investigation, no matter the field, is to find the root cause and eliminate the factors that led to the incident thus preventing the same type of incident from happening again.

History Lessons

There are two disasters that are remembered with just the name of the ship, Hindenburg and Titanic.

Both are prime examples of a lot of things happening all at the same time (or at least sequentially) which led to each disaster.

When the Titanic sank there were many fingers pointed at people to blame. The History Channel put together a decent article of the sinking and factors that led to the Titanic sinking. There were several factors that all culminated when the Titanic struck the iceberg. The reasons it struck the iceberg are parts of the factors. There wasn't just one thing that caused the sinking rather there were several factors that all played together to sink the unsinkable ship. It has been speculated several times if one of the factors had not been present the Titanic would not have sunk.

The same thing happened in the Hindenburg disaster, many different events happened that if any one of the events had not happened the whole disaster may not have happened. Airships.net has a good summary as well as other links regarding the Hindenburg. Read deeper into the articles on the site and discover how some investigators and authors have a strong bias to one side or the other.

Many people still do the same thing today after disasters, or even simple incidents; look for the quick blame (or deep pocket). At FOCUS we search for the root causes of the incident and not the quick (or sometimes popular) blame.

Root Cause Analysis

Just the same in most of our fire investigations today we look for the root cause or causes of the fire, or any incident. There may be only one factor that led to the incident, there may be several factors that melded together to cause the incident. Sometimes removing or altering one factor would have eliminated the incident.

FOCUS Fire Investigations will strive to find all the factors which led to the incident at hand. Some may be good news for our client and some may be bad news for our client. At FOCUS we will not make a case for your claim; we will however, provide you with the information needed to create the best possible truthful outcome of the claim.

Truth Seekers

One of the lines in the IAAI's Code of Ethics reads "As a fire/arson investigator, I am first and foremost, a truth seeker." While I was on the IAAI Board of Directors that line read 'We will be truth seekers and not case makers'. I like the old one better and FOCUS will never try to make your case but FOCUS will seek the truth.