I don’t own a Toyota although I do buy Japanese cars. I currently own a 2009 Mitsubishi Spyder Eclipse which allows me to tan while driving, albeit from the neck up. I have not experienced any acceleration problems, that weren’t of my own doing. Neither have I experienced any braking problems that weren’t of my own doing, but I’ve been following the Toyota issue with great interest – if only because it explains a great deal about my wife’s driving. Yes, she has a Toyota and now she has an excuse.
If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that I taught a class on museum technology last year and one of the topics is a topic I’ve presented about, which is technology project failure and particularly complex technology projects. The example I use is a modern car. In L.A. you see broken-down cars on the Freeway. Curiously though, you see more new cars than old. I derive great pleasure seeing a top-of-the-range BMW or Porsche “failing to proceed” – almost as much pleasure as I get from seeing the Hollywood-producer-type owner freaking out on his phone. But why is it that you see a brand new top-of-the-range beemer on the hard shoulder rather than a clunker?
The reason is because they are complex systems and its a great analogy for a complex software application or architecture. It used to be, if you’re car battery died, you needed a friend or some puff to bump start it, nowadays you can’t even open the door – it’s a complex system with many inter-dependencies and crucially a single point of failure – the battery. The battery in an old car was responsible for the spark plugs, the lights, the wipers and the cigarette lighter. In a new car, everything is connected to the battery – including the accelerator and brakes.
The nature of a complex system is a high number of dependencies and crucially, a high number of interfaces – this is a problem because statistically it impacts the overall reliability. An interface in a system is where one widget talks to another widget. If the reliability of that interface is 99.9%, that means statistically, the interface will fail once every thousand times. Now for some mathematical wizardry… a system with 3 interfaces, each one operating at 99.9% reliability, will have an overall reliability of 99.9% x 99.9% x 99.9% = 99.7% or 3 times in every thousand or once every three hundred and thirty three times.
I’m over simplifying, but you get the picture.
Improving on technology – which nowadays simply means more complex – can have some unintended consequences, particularly in the reliability department. Replacing a simple system (an audio guide for example) with a complex system (a multimedia handheld device), takes you from what is likely a system with a single interface (you switch on your audio player) to one with many interfaces, touchscreen, infra-red, RFID. Nobody cares that its a more complex system with more technology, they want it to work as flawlessly as the previous system.
More complex technology also comes with more complex support requirements. We do this in the museum technology field, all of a sudden you’re dealing with infra-red and RFID or [insert your new technology here] and you don’t have the support to cover it or people who fully understand it. We have websites with no web people, we download open source software with no programming support, we… etc, etc.
Which brings me back to Toyota, or rather the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on the subject of the Toyota Congressional hearings:
During opening statements at the start of Tuesday’s hearings, several Representatives also questioned the NHTSA’s ability to deal with possible software issues, noting that the agency lacks technical expertise in computerized automotive systems.
We are not alone.
November 22nd, 2011 01:55
One notable track, “No More”, is a condemnation of the meat-industry. Youth of Today made a low-budget music video for the song, incorporating footage of an abattoir acquired from PETA, but it is unlikely that the clip ever aired on MTV.