Via Wired:
Product failure is deceptively difficult to understand. It depends not just on how customers use a product but on the intrinsic properties of each part—what it’s made of and how those materials respond to wildly varying conditions. Estimating a product’s lifespan is an art that even the most sophisticated manufacturers still struggle with. And it’s getting harder. In our Moore’s law-driven age, we expect devices to continuously be getting smaller, lighter, more powerful, and more efficient.
Points:
- “The amount of overengineering a product can tolerate depends on what the product is.”
- “Warranty information is one of the most closely guarded secrets in corporate America.”
- “The problem, of course, is that it’s impossible to make a product that lasts exactly 10 years. But setting this goal provides a concrete minimum to work with. And establishing that minimum—the point where it’s OK to start seeing the first product failures—is one of the most vital parts of reliability engineering.”
Ponder: With our increasing reliance on technology, will maintenance management become the next hot career?
