ABSTRACT

Risk studies require data for defining event scenarios and assessing occurrence probabilities and consequences. Risk studies require failure data that are commonly not available to risk analysts because they represent products that have not worked as originally envisioned and thus could potentially be used in legal actions against a manufacturer or to gain competitive advantage. Therefore, manufacturers, perhaps at the advice of their legal counsel and marketing departments, do not often reveal such data freely. Due to the scarcity of failure data, efforts have been made on an industry level to pool data sources and protect anonymity of sources. An example of such an effort is the offshore reliability data program for the offshore oil exploration industry.