Failure Patterns

No machine is immortal and immune completely to any failure, no matter how safely you run, how closely you follow the instructions of the manufacturer or supplier, how best you maintain to its standards and specification. Perhaps we can only try to prevent or prolong the occurrence of failure if we know the probable reason for its occurrence.

Even in such cases, sometimes we can temporarily stop the failure. However, this is impossible if we have the complete knowledge of the failures that may occur on the equipment and their causes, effects or costs and the remedial measures. The awareness of the equipment failures often make the engineer so confident that after the rectification of the failures he will be able to assure the production manager about its running condition.

Definition of Failure

Failure is defined in many ways. Of them, the most popular and appropriate are given below:

Failure is defined as inability of a machine or equipment to perform the intended or specific job under specified conditions.

A failure is defined as an event that changes a machine or equipment from an operational condition to a non-operational condition.

Failure can be defined as "Non-conformance" to some defined performance criterion.