Cause & Effect Diagrams

[GOG]

For a new project I have to submit functional Cause & Effect diagrams for the complete control system of a power plant.
The way I've done this before is not accepted by my client. They stated that an international standard should be used for it.
Does anybody know if there is such a standard for Cause & Effect diagrams, which describes lay out, functional codes, etc.?

 

[Rich2001]

I have never heard of an International Standard that has been developed for C&E diagrams.

Here is a link to a site that show Cause-and-effect diagrams, Ishikawa Diagrams also known as fishbone diagrams.

http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/orga432-reshef/fishbone.html

Other links off Interest

http://www.robertluttman.com/cause-effect.html

http://www.pathmaker.com/resources/tools/cause.asp

http://www.yourmba.co.uk/cause_and_effect.htm

Your customer may have wanted a Fault Tree Analsys Diagram
here is some informationon them

http://www.faulttree.com/reliability/faulttree.asp

http://www.fault-tree.com/

http://www.faulttree.org/

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/new/fta34.html

 

[TD2K]

I'd ask the client for the standard they want you to use.

Frankly, from the sounds of it, they don't know what they want and are trying to cover themselves with 'international standard' requirement.

You can have a lot of discussions and opinions about what should and shouldn't be on a cause and effect diagram but this doesn't sound like this is the issue.

 

[ralphsare]

is this for risk assessment or part of the hazop using a fmea? my first formal exposure with cause and effect is with SPC (at that time tqm is a big thing). Then it was again introduced by HSB when they did a failure analysis seminar. Lately ABS Group has again discuss the method with us in line with the root cause analysis.

in all of these seminar that ive attended, the format has always been the same.

u write down the primary effect
u ask why did it happen
after getting the anwser, write the cause
Continue asking why and connect the cause and effect together.

Basic charting will be the primary effect block, follwed by the direct cause block and then the next cause block - u just keep going. Maybe its not the format but rather how the presentation was made.

 

[gunnarhole]

Dear GOG,

Is your client looking for something similar to the Safety Analysis Function Evaluation (SAFE) charts described in API RP 14C?

Regards,

Gunnar