Reducing the Risk of Failure by Deliberate Weaknesses

Abstract

The deliberate weaknesses are points of weakness towards which a potential failure is channeled in order to limit the magnitude of the consequences from failure. The article shows that reducing risk by deliberate weaknesses is a powerful domain-independent method which transcends mechanical engineering and works in various unrelated areas of human activity. A classification has been proposed of categories and classes of deliberate weaknesses reducing risk as well as discussion related to the underlying mechanisms of risk reduction. It is shown that introducing and repositioning existing weaknesses is an effective risk-reduction strategy which transcends engineering and can be applied in many unrelated domains. The article shows that in the case where the cost of failure of the separate components in a system varies significantly, an approach based on deliberate weaknesses has a significant advantage to the equal-reliability/equal-strength design approach.