Being a reliability engineer has some interesting side effects. Many reliability engineers (I have heard many similar stories from many colleagues) have developed a sixth sense for all kinds of, often weak, signals relating to a systems reliability. When I am, for example, driving a car, I have the habit of, probably even partly subconsciously, registering all kinds of signals that may relate to the cars reliability. The sound of slipping V-belts is probably an obvious example, but also all other kinds of squeaking sounds, unusual vibrations, or other unusual phenomena immediately ring an alarm bell that something is not working well and that failures could be imminent somewhen in the near future. Although some people may call this paranoia, it is, to my experience, an indication that systems contain many signals indicating a systems condition and that, provided that these signals can be picked up and that adequate models are available, these signals can be used as strong indicators for a systems reliability. And that people with the ability to interpret these (publicly broadcasted) signals may use them. Whereas in the examples given earlier it could be considered a coincidence that signals, indicating a systems condition, could be registered without any further aid outside the system, recent technological developments enable far more sophisticated forms of condition monitoring. With the development of modern sensors, it is now possible to pick up all kinds of signals with little effort. Modern signal processing algorithms allow the real-time combination of a wide range of signals into high-level diagnostics of processes taking place in a system. Modern communication techniques allow the real-time dissemination of this information to all relevant parties independent of their location. This advanced form of condition monitoring enables an entire new type of real-time reliability engineering. Already existing examples of this advanced condition monitoring are in ships where models are detailed enough to determine from a drive shafts vibration that, for example, a new drive shaft should be brought to port X because, of course with a certain likelihood and margin of error, failure before that is unlikely but after that could occur at sea; a situation most fleet owners want to avoid. These new possibilities create, for us as reliability engineers, a very promising and new field, but it raises also many interesting new questions. One important question is: who owns the data? Although quite a few of these modern applications of condition monitoring are understandable or even laudable, the underlying principles raise quite few questions. Given the fact that (combinations of) real-time embedded sensor data can provide detailed information on a systems (changes in) condition, information that has a high intrinsic value for many different parties, it becomes highly relevant to define who owns this data, who has access to this data, and for what purposes this data can be used. Personally, I see that, with the new technological possibilities, condition monitoring will be one of the main drivers for new methods and models in reliability engineering; it will move reliability engineering from being dominated by post-mortem statistics to being strongly influenced by real-time condition analysis. It is, however, crucial that in parallel, legal and ethical frameworks are developed to address the aforementioned issues. In the future, the following interesting scenario could happen. A person is walking in the street, and suddenly, next to him, an ambulance stops and starts unloading cardiopulmonary resuscitation equipment. The person asks: why are you doing this; I do not have a heart attack? Where the paramedic answers: not yet; please step into the car so we can prevent it. It would be certainly interesting to have these detailed models available. This issue is, of course, do end-users want it?
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