What-if Analysis

What-if Analysis

What if you knew all the possible outcomes for your product’s reliability performance due to component variations, for example? What if you knew the future with enough certainty to make a difference?

Building on brainstorming, what-if analysis involved using models or prototypes that allow you to change something and see how it alters the output or performance. What if we change this support bracket from iron to aluminum? What if we swap out this 100 ohm resistor for a 200 ohm one?

As a curious engineer you could spend many, many hours conducting what-if based experiments, so there is a bit more to this idea then just a random walk of changes.

The Basic What-if Process

The fundamental element of this type of analysis is to consider what will happen if an input, material, component, or some aspect of the system or design is different. This is setting up an experimental hypothesis.

What will happen if we change x to the output y? Right it down. Be clear about what you are changing and what you expect to happen.

Then do it. Observe the change. What the change in the output as you expected? Or did you learn something by a surprising result?

That’s it.