Keeping Wind in Your Sail: Keeping Up with Tools, Techniques, and Technology
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EDITORIAL
Keeping Wind in Your Sail: Keeping Up with Tools, Techniques, and Technology Daniel J. Benac
Submitted: 18 November 2014 / Published online: 18 December 2014 ASM International 2014
smaller market well into the 20th century. Then nylon was invented. Suddenly, they were both confronted with competitors, upstarts who sold lighter, stronger sails for less. Both sailmakers looked at their own operations and calculated how much it would cost to retool to make nylon sails. The California Company said, ‘‘Retooling would be much too expensive and anyway nylon will never replace all canvas sails. We are still the biggest sailmaker in the country, and we cannot possibly lose all of our customers.’’ However, within a few years of the introduction of nylon sails, that company was out of business. The Rhode Island manufacturer said, ‘‘Retooling would be much too expensive, on the other hand, we can clearly see that all sails will soon be made of nylon. Therefore we will find other stuff to make.’’ Today that company prospers making awnings and canvas bags [1].
While going through my ‘‘old files’’ I re-discovered a story about sailmakers. As I am an occasional sailor, it caught my attention. The story is about one sailmaking company that went out of business, while another sailmaker prospered. This story seems to have some parallel applications and guiding principles for us as failure analysts and investigators. The story goes: Once upon a time there were two sailmakers, one in Rhode Island, the other in California. They both opened for business in the 1800s, and both companies prospered, making canvas sails for ships of all sizes. Even after steamships replaced tall ships, they survived because they were the low cost, high quality producers. In fact, both remained profitable in a much
D. J. Benac (&) Baker Engineering and Risk Consultants, Inc. (BakerRisk), 3330 Oakwell Court, Suite 100, San Antonio, TX 78218, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Reading this story caused me to think about how we failure analysts and investigators handle change. The story reminded me of the importance of failure investigators and analysts keeping up with advances in analytical tools, new investigative approaches, and new developments in materials and technologies. Investigators must keep up with the times and advances in technology and analytical tools because good investigators provide the best services when they keep current. This story caused me to consider the following four thoughts on how to view change: • •
Change and technological advances will happen; you can either resist the change or agree to the change. As the tools and techniques change, an investigative tool kit may need to be changed and updated.
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J Fail. Anal. and Preven. (2015) 15:1–2
Businesses and careers that stay abreast of change or change their services to meet current trends tend to prosper much more than those that do not. Failure analysis technical references need to change and remain current with technological advances.
First, change and
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