Give me your best guess Not identifying root cause(s) Reworking or repairing: It will be quicker to fix it Swapping parts: Remove and replace mentality Ignoring the problem: Wait until the problem goes away We were going to change it later anyway Band-aid fixes: Return to the supplier; scrap; another system, supplier, or inventory · Never happens:“Oops Reference cited in this section 3. D P. Dennies, Boeing Co., private communication Planning and Preparation It should be clear that the objectives and scope should be defined and understood early in every investigation. If resources for a complete and detailed investigation leading to a high degree of technical certainty are not available, the investigator is encouraged to clarify for himself or herself, as well as the others involved, what is oped to be determined after following a particular protocol. This clarification process should be done before any destructive testing Even a very limited investigation is by no means useless. Often, the people involved have two or three failure scenarios in mind. It is often possible for the trained analyst to rule out some of these scenarios with a small amount of work. A case in point is when an automotive repair shop owner wanted to know if employee negligence had caused a premature fracture in an externally threaded fastener. The fracture occurred two months after the repair job. The fracture was found by a different auto repair shop. There were no indications of progressive cracking. The people from the second repair shop accused the first shop of gross negligence. In this situation, it might be reasonable to suggest that something other than the first mechanic's negligence caused the fracture. Even without revealing the whole story, the information provided with a simple fractographic evaluation was useful to those involved Guidelines on the preparation of a protocol for a failure analysis may vary. For a part investigation, it may be a simple checklist(Fig. 1)that is included in a client report. In larger investigations, other methods(Table 4)may be considered to help plan and identify priorities. Each has advantages, drawbacks, and limitations in any given situation. When planning the actual step-by-step activities of the investigation, one should keep in mind that the degree of comprehensiveness necessary will be determined to a large degree not only by what the involved parties want to know but also by how strong their desire is to know it. In practice, the strength of the desire is measured in practical terms by the budget and timing considerations· “Give me your best guess” · Not identifying root cause(s) · Reworking or repairing: “It will be quicker to fix it.” · Swapping parts: Remove and replace mentality · Ignoring the problem: “Wait until the problem goes away.” · “We were going to change it later anyway.” · Band-aid fixes: Return to the supplier; scrap; another system, supplier, or inventory · Never happens: “Oops” Reference cited in this section 3. D.P. Dennies, Boeing Co., private communication Planning and Preparation It should be clear that the objectives and scope should be defined and understood early in every investigation. If resources for a complete and detailed investigation leading to a high degree of technical certainty are not available, the investigator is encouraged to clarify for himself or herself, as well as the others involved, what is hoped to be determined after following a particular protocol. This clarification process should be done before any destructive testing. Even a very limited investigation is by no means useless. Often, the people involved have two or three failure scenarios in mind. It is often possible for the trained analyst to rule out some of these scenarios with a small amount of work. A case in point is when an automotive repair shop owner wanted to know if employee negligence had caused a premature fracture in an externally threaded fastener. The fracture occurred two months after the repair job. The fracture was found by a different auto repair shop. There were no indications of progressive cracking. The people from the second repair shop accused the first shop of gross negligence. In this situation, it might be reasonable to suggest that something other than the first mechanic's negligence caused the fracture. Even without revealing the whole story, the information provided with a simple fractographic evaluation was useful to those involved. Guidelines on the preparation of a protocol for a failure analysis may vary. For a part investigation, it may be a simple checklist (Fig. 1) that is included in a client report. In larger investigations, other methods (Table 4) may be considered to help plan and identify priorities. Each has advantages, drawbacks, and limitations in any given situation. When planning the actual step-by-step activities of the investigation, one should keep in mind that the degree of comprehensiveness necessary will be determined to a large degree not only by what the involved parties want to know but also by how strong their desire is to know it. In practice, the strength of the desire is measured in practical terms by the budget and timing considerations