Lecture 6 Reflection

In this lecture, we are talking more about the causes of engineering failures. Previously, we have talked about human factors, design flaws, material failures, and extreme conditions. This time, we are talking about a combination of two or of these causes all occuring simultaneously. Today, with the technological field growing ever larger, systems are becoming more and more complex. It is now harder to predict how and when a possible failure would happen and determine a solution in a timely manner. The dimension of this complexity definitely increases when we start factoring in things such as psychological issues or biases. Professor Halada points out that the open systems a lot of our technologies are based on, which is impacted by the environment, local politics, economics, and other constantly changing factors, is a major hazard and can often escalate very quickly. A solution to this is that the designs must take in consideration of a wide wide variety of factors, including but not limited to human factors, materials, the environment and the combination of two or more of these factors.