Where do wrong-item deliveries start? GM504's Unit 4 root cause analysis answers with a Pareto chart, an Ishikawa diagram and a location audit that confirms the cause. Searches like "gm 504 unit 4 assignment example", "gm504 unit 4 sample" and "gm504 unit 4 example" land here.
What a finished GM504 Unit 4 root cause analysis looks like
Roughly seven pages in APA format with three figures and a table. A Pareto chart comes first, sorting the baseline month's 139 corrections into wrong item (52), short quantity (41), damaged in transit (23), missing phoned-in add-ons (15) and other (8); the first two bars together hold about two thirds. An Ishikawa diagram for the wrong-item bar follows, its six branches filled from interviews with pickers, the yard lead and the inventory clerk rather than from a brainstorm. The five-whys chain runs from the wrong product on the truck to a picker pulling from the bin the system named, to stock moved into overflow during a spring delivery, to a location record never updated. The table closes the analysis: 200 bins audited, 31 holding something other than what the system listed.
How a GM504 Unit 4 example is structured
The analysis narrows in stages, each stage justified before the next. The Pareto chart earns the decision to pursue wrong-item errors first, as the largest category and the one the process map implicated. The fishbone keeps the search wide for a page, with branches for methods, materials, people, equipment, measurement and environment, so the eventual cause is chosen rather than assumed. Candidate causes are then tested against evidence one at a time: picker experience is ruled out because new and senior pickers erred at similar rates, and lighting is ruled out because errors did not cluster on the dim north aisles. The five whys follow only the surviving branch. Verification comes last, a physical audit of bin locations that turns a plausible story into a measured one, and a short section notes that short-quantity errors trace to a different cause, unit-of-measure confusion.
139 corrections, sorted
The Pareto chart with counts and cumulative percentage. Wrong items and short quantities together account for 93 of the 139, and the paper explains why it takes the larger bar first rather than the one easier to fix.
Six branches before one
The Ishikawa diagram, filled from interviews rather than a group brainstorm. Each branch lists two to four candidate causes, and the text notes which came from pickers themselves, since they named the overflow problem before any supervisor did.
Candidates ruled out
Picker tenure, aisle lighting and ticket legibility are each tested against the error records and set aside with the evidence stated. Eliminating plausible causes openly is what makes the surviving one credible.
Five whys, one branch
From wrong product on the truck to a location record that never changed after stock moved to overflow. The chain stops where the next answer would be a person's carelessness, because that answer controls nothing.
Audit of 200 bins
A physical count of 200 randomly chosen locations found 31 mismatches, or 15.5 percent. That result serves as verification, and the paper names who could control the cause: inventory control, which edits locations, and yard staff, who move stock without any way to record it.
Where marks go in GM504 Unit 4
Root cause papers here are graded hardest on where the analysis stops. An answer of human error, or pickers needing to be more careful, is scored as a symptom in most sections, because attention cannot be redesigned. Credit also falls when the fishbone is decorative: every branch filled, none tested, and the conclusion unconnected to it. Graders commonly look for the chosen cause to be verified with data, not merely argued, and a location audit or similar check is what separates a hypothesis from a finding. Skipping the Pareto step costs something too, since it leaves no reason given for which problem was pursued. The strongest submissions rule out rival causes explicitly, identify who controls the cause they keep, and note any secondary cause without letting it dilute the main one.
Get a GM504 Unit 4 example written to your instructions
Share the problem your Unit 4 analysis has to explain, what data you have on it, and any causes people at work already blame. Attach the prompt and grading rubric as well. A first custom root cause analysis is free, fitted to that prompt, rival causes tested openly, and back within 24-48h.
GM504 Unit 4 questions, answered
Do I need both a fishbone and five whys?
Only if the instructions ask for both, though many sections do. They serve different purposes: the fishbone widens the search so rival explanations appear on the page, and the five whys deepens one branch until it reaches something controllable. Using the five whys alone risks following the first plausible chain and never considering the others. In this example the two together take about two pages.
What counts as verifying a root cause?
Any check that could have come out the other way. The location audit here could have found accurate bins, which would have sent the analysis back to the fishbone. Other forms include comparing error rates before and after a known change, or testing whether the problem disappears where the suspected cause is absent. Agreement from a team meeting is not verification.
What if the cause turns out to be a person?
Keep asking why that person could make the error. A picker who pulled the wrong item was usually sent to the wrong bin, trained on an outdated layout, or working without a way to confirm the product. Those conditions belong to the process and someone manages them. Naming an individual as the cause typically costs marks and invites a disciplinary fix that changes nothing.