RCA / CAPA Support Service

Identifying root causes and supporting corrective and preventive actions

Engineering Availability

Root cause analysis that prevents recurring failures and cuts costs

JERA's RCA/CAPA Support delivers expert root cause analysis, creep-life assessment, and corrective and preventive actions as a second opinion to OEM recommendations. The result: failures that don't recur, and real savings.

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Issue

High maintenance cost
Malfunction recurrence
Availability at the KPI limit

AT A GLANCE

70+ years

Operating thermal power plants worldwide

WHY JERA

A second opinion that saves money

Where OEMs tend to recommend replacement, JERA's experienced engineers give a purely technical, user-side view — often a far more cost-effective fix.

70 GW

Fleet behind trouble database

— CCGT and conventional thermal (as of 2025)
Multi-OEM

Experience across major OEM equipment

— RCA/CAPA support regardless of manufacturer
Main+BOP

Not just gas turbines and boilers

— RCA/CAPA for balance of plant (BOP) equipment too
10+ countries

RCA/CAPA across varied plant types, fuels, and operating conditions worldwide

OVERVIEW

What is RCA / CAPA Support Service

RCA / CAPA Support is a service in which JERA investigates the root cause of a failure and defines corrective and preventive action (CAPA) so it doesn't recur. A leading example is a recurring boiler tube leak, where JERA combines expert root cause analysis with its own non-destructive creep-life assessment and, drawing on decades of operating experience, distinguishes the true cause (e.g. thermal fatigue vs. creep). The same evidence-based approach applies to other equipment. As a user-side second opinion to OEM advice — which tends toward costly replacement — it raises availability, prevents recurrence, and lowers cost. JERA identifies the cause through structured incident investigation — including fault tree analysis and 5-why analysis — and defines corrective and preventive action (CAPA) so the failure does not recur.

BENEFITS

What RCA / CAPA delivers

01

Cost reduction

Targeted countermeasures instead of costly blanket measures.
02

No recurrence

Grasping actual facts and optimum preventive action stop the same failure from returning.
03

Higher availability

Fewer forced outages once the true cause is eliminated.
04

Second opinion

A technical review of OEM recommendations from a user's perspective can avoid unnecessary expense.

CASE STUDY

$340K panel replacement avoided — a $56K fix that worked

CHALLENGE

A 10-year-old coal plant had recurring boiler tube leaks at the reheater pendant platen on Units 1 and 2 within six months. A metallurgical report blamed creep, and the OEM recommended replacing the panel with higher-grade material — a ~$340K job.

SOLUTION

JERA reviewed the report, drawings, and on-site conditions and ran its own non-destructive creep-life assessment, which showed ample remaining creep-life. The true cause was thermal-fatigue cracking from soot-blower steam — the leak sat at soot-blower height with no protector fitted. JERA recommended installing protectors, not replacing the panel, and also flagged uneven panel spacing plus design and welding issues.

RESULT

Fitting protectors for about $56K addressed the true cause instead of the $340K panel replacement — roughly $284K saved, with the recurring reheater tube leaks stopped rather than deferred.

*

We have a track record of eight similar cases involving creep-life assessments and maintenance plan proposals worldwide.

$340K › $56K

Planned panel replacement vs. protectors
$284K

Saved
8 Units

Track record — Japan 3, SE Asia 5 (as of 2024)

Source: JERA project record at a power plant in the Philippines (coal-fired). Figures are from one site and vary by plant configuration and operation.

Q&A

RCA / CAPA Support Service, answered

Q. What is RCA / CAPA Support Service?

It's a service where JERA investigates the root cause of a failure and defines corrective and preventive action so it doesn't recur. A leading example is a recurring boiler tube leak, where JERA combines expert root cause analysis with a non-destructive creep-life assessment; the same approach applies to other equipment. As a user-side second opinion to OEM advice, it raises availability and cuts cost.

Q. What factors matter most in boiler tube creep life?

Metal temperature above all — creep consumption climbs steeply with it — together with internal pressure, tube material and wall thickness, and the accumulated hours spent at temperature. Steam-side scale matters too, because it drives metal temperature up as it thickens over the years.

Q. Metal temperature can't be measured directly — how do you obtain it?

It is calculated, not measured. JERA derives metal temperature from operation data, structural drawings, and measured tube dimensions and scale thickness, then applies its own creep-life evaluation criteria. That is what makes the assessment non-destructive and workable from data you already hold.

EXPLORE MORE

A specialist monitoring power plant equipment remotely

Operation Availability

Find the true root cause — and stop the repeat

Request a consultation. Share your failure and equipment data, and JERA will diagnose the true root cause as a second opinion — then define the corrective and preventive action that keeps it from coming back, before you commit.

Request a consultation Download guide (PDF)

NOTES

Author: JERA Overseas Engineering Service Group · Reviewed by O&M Engineering Strategy Division Published Sep 2026 · Last updated Sep 2026

Back to Service TOP

Issue

AT A GLANCE

A second opinion that saves money

Cost reduction

No recurrence

Higher availability

Second opinion

CHALLENGE

SOLUTION

RESULT

*

Remote Monitoring Service

Reliability Analytics Service

Equipment Diagnostics Service

Plant Performance Evaluation Service

Find the true root cause — and stop the repeat

NOTES