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Driving out failure
Author(s) -
Davis Tim,
Champkin Julian
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
significance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1740-9713
pISSN - 1740-9705
DOI - 10.1111/j.1740-9713.2006.00167.x
Subject(s) - rollover (web design) , product (mathematics) , newspaper , forensic engineering , business , engineering , operations management , advertising , computer science , geometry , mathematics , world wide web
Product recall notices in shops, newspapers and elsewhere inform us now and then of children's toys that might be dangerous or electrical goods that could catch fire. You or I might describe that as faulty design. Tim Davis calls it an “escaped failure mode”—and he is against it. His world is not toys or electrical goods, but vehicles, where failure modes and recalls are more expensive and usually more serious. As an example: in 2001 the failure of certain Firestone tyres on Ford SUVs led to rollover accidents in which close to 300 people died. Nearly 20 million tyres needed to be recalled. Industry estimates put the cost at around †3 billion. It was Tim Davis who was called in to find out what had gone wrong. Julian Champkin interviewed him.