Lessons Learned System SP1

REASON © Knowledge Management

A technology whose time has come

-Contiued-

control in the future. Because REASON focuses upon the internal business processes as the seat of root causes and their removal, those steps necessarily involve developing or modifying business processes. The resulting data are ordered and unified into causally associated facts that translate into new knowledge about why problems are occurring in the organization. It is this knowledge that sets the REASON Lessons Learned System apart.

When the data gathering and modeling of the problem are completed, the system applies an objective quantification standard to measure exactly how much each cause contributed to the problem. The system automatically generates a logic tree model showing graphically how each cause combined and led to the occurrence of the problem, a plain-English narrative explaining step-by-step how the problem happened, and an analysis comparing all prevention options in order to identify the best and most cost-effective solutions. The process has in effect mapped the information into a causally associated sequence of causally associated sets of causes. The knowledge that is contained within the data structure goes beyond content to reveal the causal sequences, combinations and interaction of the effects of the business processes themselves, revealing a new level and dimension of understanding exactly what is happening within an organization, and providing a view of options for addressing and improving the organization’s internal systems.

The completion of the prevention action plan is recorded and the data file is automatically submitted to REASON Lessons Learned. Key personnel throughout the organization have previously submitted a data profile of all of the issues that are important to their responsibilities and processes. As the REASON data flows into the lessons learned system, REASON is monitoring content, watching for matches to those data profiles. When a match is found, it immediately sends an alert. In moments the targeted individual has received a heads-up alert. Information gets to the person who needs it and can act to head off a developing problem. This real-time picture of what is happening within the organization is also immediately addressable as an information resource for workers, supervisors, engineers, planners and managers. Instead of a simple indexing of words to support word searches, REASON data is an ordered structure of data that permits you to search for factors that combined into a causal system at a point in time to produce a step toward a problem. The results of these searches are richer data content and strongly targeted information. Thus the organization’s information about counter-quality becomes a dynamic, real-time resource, rather than merely a static storehouse of facts.

Elements of Risk

The same data file that was created when the problem was first solved, and that was used by Lessons Learned for access to past experiences, also serves as the resource for new kinds of data for risk managers. The simple and straightforward premise is that each root cause represents a lack of control or risk within the environment. Because the REASON system can measure the system that produced the problem, it is possible to calculate how much each cause contributed to the problem. In effect, it measures the amount of actual risk each cause represents in the environment. If we act upon a particular root cause, we remove a measured amount of risk. Knowing which causes remain in the environment enables us to measure and manage the known risk. The hard numbers returned by the system provide unique and meaningful analyses and risk trending capabilities.

Control Effectiveness

REASON provides new and unique data for oversight and monitoring of control effectiveness at the micro and macro level. For example, it is possible to measure the effectiveness of control not only by facility, process, and operation, but also at the organizational level to determine effectiveness of the overall control at the management, supervisor and individual level. This view is available for a single problem, a group of problems, or all recorded problems that were solved and recorded.

When problems and their solutions are linked to business processes, the data can provide dramatic insights to the internal health of the organization. The ability to associate business processes with the strategies and goals of the organization provide executive managers with new visibility of the efficiency and effectiveness of controls over critical operations. These perceptions are a result of the ability to link problems with the policies that combine to form the business processes that have been designed to achieve the strategies that have been developed to accomplish the primary goals of the organization. Analysis of operations problems then becomes a direct measure of the control mechanisms of the organization.

New Avenues to Improvement

This expanded resource of information made possible through DSI research and product development has early provided new capabilities and insights into ways organizations can improve operations quality. We anticipate that as the discipline of knowledge management matures, the resource of this validated and quantified data about internal systems will become increasingly valuable to managers seeking better control and quality of operations.

If your management group is seeking new avenues to continued success and operations improvement, we encourage you to investigate the promise of REASON as a means to gain increased value from your internal information. If your organization has already made a commitment to knowledge management as a growth activity for operations improvement, we invite you to explore the dramatic benefits that REASON holds for you.

For more information on how REASON can be deployed to upgrade your operations improvement activities, please call (903) 236 9973.