Project Engineering and Assurance

Less than two minutes into its launch in January 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded into a candy-floss cloud of smoke and debris over the Atlantic Ocean. All seven of the famed crew members were killed. Though the first fatal accident of a NASA spacecraft was Apollo 1, the Challenger disaster was the first such to occur during flight. The space shuttle mission was supposed to be routine. It was Challenger's tenth launch and was planned to showcase the potential for delivering commercial and scientific payloads, and enhance public relations. The operation was to deploy a communications satellite and a scientific observation satellite aimed at Halley's comet. The mission parameters didn't imply anything that was too technically challenging. Primarily, the disaster is remembered as a technical failure. The accident investigation and allied commission of enquiry recognized the O-ring arrangement at the joint between the segments of the starboard booster rocket as the...

Satisficing is a key practice and part of decision-making strategy within engineering design. As a portmanteau of satisfy and suffice, the practice entails choosing an alternative that meets the minimum set of predefined criteria; nothing more. The practice focuses on using time and resources towards achieving an outcome that is good enough, rather than one that is ideal or optimal, and thus avoiding the risk of pursuing small gains using wasteful effort. For example, technical bid evaluations appraise a technology or equipment against an approved specification. The specification describes the acceptance criteria, and the evaluation is limited to just the factors that matter the most. Another case involves site selection and plant layout. There is always the prospect for improvement and optimisation of the layout. However, the optimisation cycle will take time, consume resources and delay further work. The decision to accept a layout, therefore, benefits from evaluating the competing ...

Abstraction is a key method and part of decision-making strategy within engineering design. The method involves representing an object or system in its simplest form, using only essential properties, to match a particular analysis. This simplification allows the designer to focus on the priorities without the “noise” of extraneous elements or distracting detail. For example, a facility’s layout could be represented as a hand-drawn sketch showing only the major elements using rough proportions with the purpose of analysing and evaluating only the relationship of key equipment. Also, the flows and operations of an industrial facility are represented as simple lines and symbols in the form of flow diagrams and P&IDs. The simplification allows the interfaces and elements to be analysed and evaluated. Abstraction is a common method used throughout the design process because it allows designers to spend only the minimum effort to synthesise only crucial information. Since engineering d...