In an era of conservationism and recycling, it is surprising to realize how inefficiently the products of human intelligence are treated. Failure analysis reports, for example, are almost considered to be throw-away documents, assembled for only a short attention span. Modem information processing tools could help change that situation. The flexibility provided by these tools is tremendous once the initial investment has been made. In the forthcoming age of continuous requirements for lean materials performance, military systems will continue to need the highest levels of reliability and efficiency. In a context where the majority of corrosion problems are a direct result of compounded human and organizational errors, there is scope for considerable savings to budgets by improving the process by which we learn from the lessons of the past.
Keywords: maintenance, military, corrosion control, knowledge-based systems, human error, lessons learned