The opportunities for the internet to assist with failure analysis

One of the major reasons for the failure of components is the lack of information readily available to engineers. An engineer cannot be expected to know everything and thus must rely on information that is both accurate and relevant. Within this paper the opportunities for the Internet to assist the engineer by supplying accurate and relevant information are investigated. It is foreseen that rapid development in this field will produce many opportunities for companies to exploit, but a careful evaluation of the requirements and a commonality in the structure and computer protocols used is paramount to the success of such developments. Two techniques are extensively discussed: Data mining and the World Wide Web (WWW). Data mining can show the relative occurrence of failure modes and this can help develop Expert and knowledge based systems. Using the WWW, a knowledge-based system for failure analysis has been developed.