How should organizations deal with high-consequence failure modes?

Choosing to determine assets to prioritize for mitigation is vital for effectively managing high-consequence failure modes. This approach allows organizations to assess which failure modes have the most significant potential impact on safety, operations, and finances. By prioritizing assets, organizations can allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring that the most critical areas receive the attention and preventative measures they need. This mitigates risks associated with failures that could lead to severe consequences, ensuring the organization's overall reliability and safety.

Prioritizing assets for mitigation helps create a structured approach to reliability, enabling organizations to focus on the most crucial aspects of their operations while still considering wider preventive strategies. This step is fundamental in effective asset management, risk assessment, and reliability engineering practices.

The concept of eliminating monitoring for less critical failures would detract from a comprehensive reliability strategy, as all failures, regardless of perceived criticality, can provide valuable insights. Starting with the least expensive asset does not follow a logical risk management approach, as cost alone does not equate to the potential impact of a failure. Similarly, focusing solely on failures that are highly unlikely ignores the necessity of preparing for possible significant impacts, regardless of their probability. Therefore, prioritizing mitigation efforts based on the criticality of assets is the most effective and responsible strategy.