Technical troubleshooting and root cause analysis

Analysts, supervisors and technical managers who investigate abnormal results, instrument problems and technical deviations.

Delegates work real investigations through the structured tools during the two days, using cases from their own laboratories where they can bring them.

The syllabus below is the standard shape of the course. It is adjusted to the matrices, methods and instruments you actually run, which is agreed before delivery rather than discovered on the day.

• Framing

  Defining the problem precisely enough to be investigable

• Immediate action

  Containment and impact assessment before the investigation starts

• Tools

  Five whys, fishbone, fault tree and is/is-not analysis, and when each fits

• Laboratory failure modes

  Sample, reagent, standard, instrument, environment, method, analyst

• Evidence

  Testing a hypothesis instead of accepting the first plausible cause

• Closure

  Corrective action, effectiveness verification and knowing when it is closed

Courses are written around what a delegate can do afterwards, not what was presented to them. These are the outcomes this one is built to produce.

1. 01Define an investigable problem statement from a vague abnormal result.
2. 02Choose and run the right structured tool rather than defaulting to five whys.
3. 03Distinguish a cause you have evidenced from one that is merely plausible.
4. 04Verify that a corrective action worked, and close the investigation on evidence.

"Analyst error" is the most common recorded root cause in laboratory investigations and is almost never the actual one. It is what an investigation records when it stopped early, and it produces a corrective action — retraining — that fixes nothing and recurs.

The second failure is closing on the fix rather than on evidence the fix worked. An investigation with no effectiveness check is a hypothesis with paperwork.

Delivered over 2 days, at your site or at the laboratory, in English or Arabic. Sessions are built around real records, real data and real failures rather than slides of clause numbers, and the people delivering them spend the rest of the week doing the thing being taught.

Group size is agreed in advance — practical sessions are capped so that everyone works rather than watches. An attendance certificate is issued to each delegate on completion.

Ask about any subject not listed here. If it is not something we teach well, we will say so rather than build it for the sake of the booking.