Features
Field Failure Data – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
There are many benefits to a company when they have access to good field failure data. Most of the benefits are categorized as saving money. At the same time, most of the expenditure to get good failure data is already being spent. Given a small incremental cost of added data collection and better data analysis, the benefits could be achieved.
Good high quality field failure data has often been described as the ultimate source of failure data. However, not all field failure studies are high quality. Some field studies simply do not have the needed information. Some field studies make unrealistic assumptions. The results can be quite different depending on methods and assumptions. Some methods produce optimistic results that can result in bad designs and unsafe processes.
This article presents some common field failure analysis techniques, shows some of the limitations of the methods and describes important attributes of a good field failure data collection system.