Category Archives: Design@Risk™

#29 – SPACE TOURISM – PAUL KOSTEK

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Paul Kostek PixAfter writing several articles about topics  related to medical devices and big data, thought I’d explore a new area, risk and space tourism.

Though I will include one interesting note about medical devices, on the October 20th episode of 60 Minutes former VP Dick Cheney admitted that he had the external programming capability for his defibrillator turned off to prevent it from being hacked.  So, even as people question the possibility of this occurring we have a real world example of the steps taken to prevent this from happening.  Think risk mitigation. Continue reading →

#26 – POOR RELIABILITY: A RISK TO PRODUCTION – JOHN AYERS

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John Ayers pixReliability is designed into a product.  Quality is built into a product.  Poor reliability is long term, difficult and expensive to rectify because it is woven into the fabric of the product.

Quality is a relative short term problem because once the badly written procedure, non-compliant material or poor workmanship is identified, it usually can be fixed relatively quickly with minimal impact to the program. Continue reading →

#24 – PERSONAL RISK AND BIG DATA – PAUL KOSTEK

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Paul Kostek PixI usually write about risk as related to projects, but several of the comments I received on my article on “Can Your Pacemaker be Hacked” made me realize that we are all faced with risk management in our personal lives.

Continuing on the medical topic, think about how many options you’re faced with when your doctor recommends a procedure, whether adding a pacemaker, replacing a joint or a prescription drug.   Continue reading →

#21 – COULD YOUR PACEMAKER BE HACKED? – PAUL KOSTEK

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Paul Kostek PixHack a pacemaker?  Is this a real problem?

Some recent experiments have been able to hack a pacemaker and other medical devices including an insulin pump.  The weakness of these systems was the analog sensors attached to the body to gather information. These analog inputs bypass the internal security and are converted directly to digital signals.  Continue reading →

#20 – OF FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS ON TRAINS AND BOATS – CHRIS PEACE

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Chris Peace pixThe trains and boats …
Took you away, away from me.
(Bacharach, 1966)

Hindsight is cheap, as argued by Taleb when he wrote about black swans.

First [the black swan] is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact …. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable. Continue reading →