Bennett L. Rouse

Turning failing technology into success

The engineering process today is dominated by solving problems. Typically a multitude of solutions are created in order to find the one, perfect solution to the problem. However, along the way, these multitudes of solutions are discarded and eventually overlooked as if they never existed in the first place. However, the works of Henry Petroski suggest that according to the pendulum, failing technology always has the possibility of swinging into a success. Likewise, these multitudes of solutions that are deemed as failures may hold the key to future answers as well. Teams should be instigated to explore the full spectrum of uses for failing technology to turn it into success.

The best example of this problem would be the introduction of the post-it note. Post-its seem primitive, but they have become a highly successful technology due to failure. A low-track, pressure sensitive adhesive was developed on accident by Spencer Silver. Rather than scratching the formula and continuing to solve the original problem, Silver somehow pushed the adhesive formula far enough to find a use on a scratch piece of paper. Engineers never addressed how to make pieces of paper that stick to surfaces, but the steps offered by the engineering process did. For this reason, we must treat failing technology with more respect than we currently do.

Posted at 10:48PM Dec 06, 2008 by Bennett L. Rouse in General  |  Comments[1]