Beyond Root Cause Analysis: Resilience Engineering for Complex System Failures
2025-05-24
This article critiques the limitations of Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in analyzing complex system failures, arguing that its flawed causal chain model fails to effectively address failures caused by the interaction of multiple factors in complex systems. The author proposes Resilience Engineering (RE) as an alternative. RE focuses on interactions between system components rather than single causes. RE acknowledges that systems always contain numerous latent failures; success lies in the system's adaptive capacity and fault tolerance. By understanding how the system adapts and copes with failures, rather than simply eliminating root causes, continuous improvement and increased system resilience are achieved.