Refcco

  In the world of product safety, it could be said that there are two basic approaches to risk mitigation, proactive and reactive, with proactive being the preferred choice. Most would agree with the adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” but in truth, this oversimplifies the reality in which product manufacturers operate. As with most things in life, things are rarely black and white but rather a continuous spectrum of shades of gray. To this, there are many competing aspects in all commercial product ventures. Could you make a product that was fully reliable under all conditions? Perhaps, but the odds are that it would be a commercial failure as it would take an inordinate amount of time to produce and be prohibitively expensive. In today’s market, the traditional characteristics of safety, time to market, quality, cost, reliability, manufacturability, testability, and usability (to name a few) still apply. But these have been further augmented by more mode...