Critical Thinking:
SpotLight embodies core aspects of “critical thinking”. SpotLight uses information from the physical senses when it is appropriate – touch, sound, smell, observation (but seldom taste!). It will ask about recent maintenance history when appropriate. It uses time, cost, and frequency of occurrence in its reasoning. Its knowledge is based predominantly on experience.
A SpotLight knowledgebase also includes solutions based purely on analysis when appropriate. For example, when a failure mode is anticipated but has not yet happened in the field, SpotLight solutions can be derived through analysis – the Failure Modes and Effects Analysis database being a prime source.
In particular, SpotLight is able to draw upon the global experience of a community of technicians in its critical thinking. There are abundant examples of experience-based Solutions in SpotLight knowledgebases that defy pure logic and analysis – complex combinations of time windows, operating sequences, prior environmental conditions, intermittency, design flaws, mis-configuration, maintenance error, and cross-system interactions. These are perplexing problems that were solved by someone’s stroke of genius, or by chance discovery of the cause. What they reveal upon reflection are the unsuspected influences of such factors on failure states.
©2008 CaseBank Technologies Inc.
Failure to resolve unexpected faults (elusive faults) on the first attempt can result in rapidly escalating costs and operational disruptions due to flight cancellations, gate delays, unsubstantiated part removals, complete out-of-service periods, and unplanned overtime and shift bonuses.
Elusive faults are the most difficult type of fault that technicians can face because they are not always correctly addressed by existing diagnostics aids, such as built-in tests or fault-isolation manuals. These problems are often characterized by intermittent symptoms, possibly caused by unpredictable conditions such as aging, environmental factors, or manufacturing error.
Elusive faults consume a disproportionate share of the unplanned maintenance-related expenses due to the difficulty of determining their root cause. Troubleshooters often have no convenient or timely way of knowing that another mechanic has encountered a similar problem and has solved it already. Until now, they've been on their own and often in the dark about how to find a solution quickly.
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