Build and maintain a bad actor register ranked by failure frequency, downtime and total cost of unreliability.
Engineering & Maintenance
Bad Actor Elimination Programmes for Chronic Equipment Failures
Build a structured programme to identify the assets driving the most downtime and cost, investigate their root causes, and eliminate recurring failures for good instead of repeating the same repairs.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Every plant carries a short list of assets that fail again and again: the pump rebuilt every quarter, the conveyor that jams on every shift, the valve replaced before it ever reaches its rated life. Conventional maintenance responds to each event separately, so the same failure returns with the next campaign and the underlying cause is never removed. This course teaches a structured bad actor elimination approach: mining CMMS and downtime records to rank assets by frequency and cost, running disciplined root cause investigations with tools such as 5-Why, fishbone diagrams, fault tree analysis and PROACT, and forming cross-functional teams empowered to redesign, replace or modify the failing component rather than simply repairing it again. Sessions combine worked failure data, live root cause practice on real recurring problems, and the governance needed to track actions to closure. Participants leave with a working bad actor register, an investigation method they can apply immediately, and a verification approach that confirms a failure has actually been eliminated rather than temporarily suppressed.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Apply Pareto analysis to CMMS and production data to separate the vital few chronic failures from routine faults.
Lead structured root cause investigations using 5-Why, fishbone diagrams and fault tree analysis on live failure cases.
Use the PROACT method and a FRACAS log to capture, classify and track failure evidence through to a verified fix.
Form and lead a cross-functional elimination team with clear ownership, deadlines and engineering change authority.
Design corrective actions that change equipment design, procedures or materials rather than repeating like-for-like repairs.
Verify elimination effectiveness through MTBF trending and structured reviews before closing an action as complete.
Who Should Attend
Reliability engineers responsible for reducing chronic failures and unplanned downtime.
Maintenance managers who need a structured process to stop repeat repairs consuming their budget.
Plant and production engineers who investigate recurring stoppages on critical lines.
CMMS administrators and planners building bad actor registers from maintenance history data.
Root cause analysis facilitators leading cross-functional investigation teams.
Asset management and continuous improvement specialists tasked with defect elimination initiatives.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Identifying and Ranking Bad Actors from Plant Data
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Building a Bad Actor Register from CMMS and Downtime Records
- Extract failure history, downtime duration and repair cost from CMMS work orders to build a structured bad actor dataset.
- Classify recorded failures by equipment type, failure mode and production impact to enable consistent ranking.
- Distinguish genuine chronic bad actors from isolated one-off failures using frequency and recurrence criteria.
- Set up a live bad actor register template that is updated as new work orders close and history accumulates.
Session 2Pareto and Cost-of-Unreliability Ranking Methods
- Apply Pareto analysis to rank assets by downtime hours, failure count and maintenance spend.
- Calculate the cost of unreliability for a chronic failure, including labour, parts, production loss and overtime.
- Weight ranking criteria to reflect safety, environmental and production risk alongside pure cost.
- Select the vital few bad actors to take forward into root cause investigation each review cycle.
02Root Cause Investigation Techniques for Chronic Failures
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Structured RCA Methods: 5-Why, Fishbone and Fault Tree Analysis
- Facilitate a 5-Why investigation that avoids stopping at the first plausible cause offered by the team.
- Build fishbone diagrams that separate machine, method, material, manpower and environment contributing factors.
- Construct fault tree diagrams for failures with multiple interacting causes and logic gates.
- Gather physical evidence, operating data and interview testimony before the investigation session begins.
Session 2PROACT and FRACAS for Systemic Defect Capture
- Apply the PROACT method to move from failure definition through hypothesis testing to verified root cause.
- Set up a FRACAS log that captures every chronic failure, its analysis status and corrective action owner.
- Differentiate physical, human and latent organisational root causes within a single investigation.
- Review historical FRACAS entries to spot recurring latent causes across different equipment types.
03Designing and Running the Elimination Programme
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Cross-Functional Elimination Teams and Action Ownership
- Select team members from operations, maintenance, engineering and procurement based on the failure's root cause.
- Assign single-point accountability and realistic deadlines for every corrective action in the register.
- Escalate stalled actions through a defined governance route when ownership or funding is unclear.
- Communicate elimination progress to operators and supervisors so field observations keep feeding the programme.
Session 2Precision Maintenance and Engineering Change to Remove Root Causes
- Apply precision maintenance practices such as controlled torque, alignment and cleanliness to remove induced failures.
- Raise engineering change requests to modify design, materials or specification where repair alone cannot fix the cause.
- Update procedures, spares specifications and drawings once a corrective design change is approved.
- Pilot a corrective action on a single asset before rolling it out across an entire equipment population.
04Sustaining Gains and Measuring Programme Effectiveness
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Verification, MTBF Trending and Effectiveness Reviews
- Track mean time between failures before and after a corrective action to confirm the failure is actually eliminated.
- Schedule a verification review at a defined interval after implementation rather than closing the action immediately.
- Reopen an investigation when a failure recurs after a corrective action was recorded as complete.
- Report elimination outcomes in terms of downtime avoided and maintenance effort released for other priorities.
Session 2Embedding Defect Elimination into Continuous Improvement Culture
- Integrate bad actor reviews into regular reliability meetings so the register never becomes a one-off exercise.
- Train operators and technicians to raise candidate bad actors and preliminary evidence for early screening.
- Recognise and share successful eliminations to build ongoing support for the programme across shifts.
- Refresh ranking criteria periodically so new chronic failures are captured as older ones are resolved.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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