Revealing Design Flaws at Different Stages of Product Development Using Anticipatory Failure Determination (AFD) Technique

In this paper a combination of conventional tools for machinery failure analysis, Anticipatory Failure Determination (AFD) and Classical TRIZ has been suggested. The use of these tools in combination proved to be highly effective. The effectiveness of this combination has been illustrated with two case studies - one on revealing design flaws at early stages of the rack and pinion mechanism development and the other one on revealing the flaw in bolster design that remained hidden for many years while the bolster assemblies worked under normal operation conditions, but caused significant financial losses when flood happened.