Failsafing

Dr Arvind Kalia
 Meaning
• A fail-safe in engineering is a design feature or
practice that in the event of a specific type
of failure, inherently responds in a way that
will cause no or minimal harm to other
equipment, the environment or to people
• A mechanism capable of returning to a safe
state in case there is a failure or malfunction
 Meaning
• Unlike inherent safety to a particular hazard, a
system being "fail-safe" does not mean that
failure is impossible or improbable, but rather
that the system's design prevents or mitigates
unsafe consequences of the system's failure.
That is, if and when a "fail-safe" system "fails",
it is "safe" or at least no less safe than when it
was operating correctly
 Other related terms
• Fail safe Vs Fool proof
• Fail safe – Is it guaranteed not to fail?
 Other related term – Poka Yoke
• Fail-safe (foolproof) devices are also known
as poka-yoke devices. Poka-yoke,
a Japanese term, was coined by Shigeo
Shingo, a quality expert, as part of the Toyota
Production System
• More broadly, the term can refer to
any behavior-shaping constraint designed into
a process to prevent incorrect operation by
the user.
 Poka Yoke
• A simple poka-yoke example is demonstrated
when a driver of the car equipped with a
manual gearbox must press on the clutch
pedal (a process step, therefore a poka-yoke)
prior to starting an automobile
 Poka Yoke in service sector
• The power of error proofing in the service
sector.
• Poka Yoke is a term most
widely associated with manufacturing
however the concepts are fully applicable in
any business where processes exist i.e. all
businesses.
Poka Yoke in service sector
Poka Yoke in service sector
 Other related terms –
SAFE TO FAIL
• "Safe to fail" refers to civil engineering designs
such as the Room for the River project in
Netherlands and the Thames Estuary 2100
Plan which incorporate flexible adaptation
strategies or climate change adaptation which
provide for, and limit, damage, should severe
events such as 500-year floods occur
 Other related terms –
Fail safe and fail secure
• Fail-safe and fail-secure are distinct concepts. Fail-
safe means that a device will not endanger lives or
property when it fails. Fail-secure, also called fail-
closed, means that access or data will not fall into the
wrong hands in a security failure. Sometimes the
approaches suggest opposite solutions. For example, if
a building catches fire, fail-safe systems would unlock
doors to ensure quick escape and allow firefighters
inside, while fail-secure would lock doors to prevent
unauthorized access to the building.
• The opposite of fail-closed is called fail-open