Ranking of failure scenarios is a very important process in engineering. In particular, the high-level ranking approach plays a pivotal role through its two major criteria applied in the process. The first one focuses on the various types of impacts that a project is likely to cause. The second criterion focuses on the overall cost incurred by the party that offers opposition to a proposed project. In addition, the criterion considers the difficulty levels with regard to addressing the identified threats. To determine the overall ranking of a scenario, the projected impact is divided by the total cost to the adversary. Some of the factors considered in determining the overall ranking of a scenario include the opportunity result, the effects of it happening, and the impact result among others.
The ranking level assigns scores that act as indicators of the likelihood of the scenario happening and the magnitude of its impacts. For example, a scenario involving a power outage can be used to illustrate this concept. In one situation, a customer can experience a power outage for a few minutes, thus leading to petty expenses due to a lack of service delivery or perished goods. A second situation can involve an individual who purchases a standby generator in situations when the power outage takes longer to be resolved than anticipated. The third situation can involve individuals experiencing power outages due to faulty meters. This also has a number of impacts because the user will have to incur some expenses in addressing the problem. Another situation can involve a faulty generator serving a large community, which leads to people being without power for more than a week.
All the above scenarios involving a single problem have varying degrees in terms of their probability of happening and the overall impacts. The impacts involved are mainly related to costs incurred in addressing the problem. In the ranking, the lower the score, the higher the chances that a failure scenario can be triggered without incurring high costs. However, it is important to note that achieving such a feat requires the input of experts and good planning. Their major role involves carrying out the scenario to identify the possible risks involved, the potential impacts, and the most effective preventive measures. When making the decision to trigger a failure scenario, it is important to consider the potential costs that will be incurred in the case of an adversary.
Studies have established that failure scenarios often receive a lot of criticism and opposition from various people due to the fear of incurring unnecessary expenses. Therefore, if the costs likely to be incurred by an adversary are high, then it is important to trigger the failure scenario at its infancy stage when the risks are much lower. Studies have also established that involving several experts in the ranking process plays a crucial role in achieving an accurate probability for various scenarios. This involves the participating experts carrying out independent rankings for all the scenarios. This helps a lot in determining the authenticity of the final rankings, as well as the projects costs and risks. One of the most important elements during ranking is the kind of score given to a scenario because it determines the likelihood of it happening and its potential impacts. Therefore, scores should be given in the correct manner in order to achieve the desired results.