Past Good and Bad Knowledge

Abstract

Chris and Fred discuss the so-called ‘bedrock documents and statistics’ that are used over and over again as if they are universally correct – even though they might have nothing to do with ‘your’ machines or systems. WHY?

Key Points

Join Chris and Fred as they discuss the role that documents that are quoted as if their figures and conclusions they contain are unambiguously correct, for all machines, for all time. Why?

Topics include:

• ‘I want a quick answer and don’t want to think too much about it.’ If this sounds like you … we can’t help. You are the type of person who likes the documents we are talking about. Please seek therapy. If you want to be a designer or an engineer … be a designer or an engineer. Oh … Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a tool. Not a god.
• Give me an example. There is a report authored by Nowlan and Heap that multiple industries use to say things like ’89 % of components never wear out.’ The trouble is that Nowlan and Heap’s report contains reliability curves that don’t make sense (like a straight line going from 100 to 0 %, which can’t happen), based on data that is incomplete as components were being replaced early on in their lives (never allowing them to wear out and produce wear out data), and focused on United Airline’s fleet of aircraft circa 1978 (which isn’t shared, so we can’t interrogate it). Aircraft are around 10 times more reliable today as they were then, so even for today’s airlines these figures would be meaningless. But Nowlan and Heap’s report is frequently cited to this day as if it is just as authoritative on things like power-generating plants and manufacturing facilities.
• But we have been using these figures forever and everything is fine. Really? What does fine mean to you? Making the same mistakes over and over again and having this reality normalized? If you want to be competitive, take the time to understand your machines. This will help you make decisions that would almost certainly drastically improve reliability and availability through things like adjusting maintenance regimes and so on.

Enjoy an episode of Speaking of Reliability. Where you can join friends as they discuss reliability topics. Join us as we discuss topics ranging from design for reliability techniques to field data analysis approaches.

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Show Notes

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