Failure analysis of a physical object is often only part of a larger investigation intended to prevent recurrences. When taking the broadest view of what is required to prevent failures, one answer stands out: education. To reduce the frequency of physical failures, education must be instilled at multiple levels and on multiple subjects within an organization.

Education, of which job training is a single component, is what allows people at all levels of an organization to make better decisions in time frames stretching from momentary to career-long. Many books contain exercises that help the reader to restructure knowledge into a more useful and accessible form. Other books help the reader learn to recognize incorrect lines of reasoning; an excellent example is Tools of Critical Thinking: Metathoughts for Psychology by D. Levy (Ref 1).Specific levels of failure causes (Fig. 1) have been defined by Failsafe Network (Ref 2) as:

• Root: the true cause of failure, encompasses the next three items

•Physical: the failure mechanism (fatigue, overload, corrosion, etc.)

•Human: the human factors that lead to the physical cause

•Latent: the cultural/organizational rules that lead to the human cause

Clearly, many people involved with failure analysis incorrectly use the term “root cause” when what they really are referring to is a simple physical cause. If failure analysis tasks are performed adequately, then the analyst ultimately should be able to list the causes found, show that the failure would have happened the way it did, and also show that if something different had happened at some step along the way, the failure would not have occurred or would have occurred differently. Unfortunately, this definitive demonstration of the failure is not always possible. Even a lengthy and thorough investigation can result in unknowns. The honest analyst is left to make a statement of the factors involved in allowing conditions that promoted the likelihood of failure. This is still a useful task, perhaps more useful than one that merely pins “blame” on a particular individual or group. Understanding the factors that promoted a failure can lead to an understanding of exactly what is required to improve the durability of products, equipment, or structures. Understanding goes beyond knowledge of facts. Understanding requires integration of facts into the knowledge base of an individual so that the facts can be transformed into product and/or process improvement.

By now it should be clear that failure analysis is a task that requires input from people with many areas of expertise. A simple physical failure of a small object may be analyzed by a single individual with basic training in visual evaluation of engineered objects. However, going to the level of using the failure analysis to improve products and processes requires expertise in the various aspects of human relations and education, at the least. Failure analysis of a complex or catastrophic failure requires much more.

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