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Pushing the Frontier of Risk Assessment and CAPA

New technologies require new tools

Mary McAtee
Thu, 09/17/2015 - 00:00
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Technology is evolving more rapidly than at any point in history. We tend to think of seminal moments in history, such as the inventions of the steam engine or powered flight, as literal moments in time.

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The reality is that the invention of the steamboat by Robert Fulton was only possible because of a long sequence of successive inventions on which he was able to capitalize to change the world. If the ability to cast and temper iron had not been improved over the ages, Fulton could not have repurposed the concept used to pump water and compress air into the piston, cylinder, and crankshaft. Fulton’s brilliance was harnessing known physical laws to use steam to develop and transfer energy into work.

The steam engine appears with a specific date for its invention on those illustrated timelines so fondly recalled in high school history books. Depending on your perspective, it could very well look more like a Gantt chart, starting with man’s development of fire.

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Comments

Submitted by Alan Metzel on Fri, 09/18/2015 - 09:12

Consequences of new technology

While, as noted, the invention of the steam engine and it's ramifications is really a series of events, to compare it's history to a Gantt chart ignores those missteps and serendipodous events that guided that history. It's more like a Gantt Chart crossed with a pinball machine.

If it can be found, many years ago PBS had a series called, "Connections" that followed the often disjointed histories of various inventions.

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