Forensic investigation, and how it differs from failure investigation
The engineering is the same. The difference is what the answer is going to be used for.
A failure investigation establishes why something failed so that you can stop it happening again. The audience is you and your engineers.
A forensic investigation is conducted from the outset on the basis that its findings may be relied on by somebody else — an insurer, a supplier, a tribunal or a court — and may be challenged by someone whose job is to undermine them. That changes how the work is run, not what is examined. Chain of custody is documented from receipt. Destructive steps are notified before they are taken, because cutting a sample is irreversible and the other side has an interest in it. Alternative explanations are recorded and addressed rather than discarded. Every conclusion is traceable to the evidence that supports it.
You do not always know at the start which one you need. If there is any prospect of a claim or a dispute, run it as a forensic investigation — a failure investigation cannot be converted into one afterwards, because the decisions that make evidence defensible are taken on day one.
When a technical finding becomes a legal question
Most failures are settled between engineers. Some are not. When a supplier disputes responsibility, an insurer questions a claim, a contractor and an operator disagree about a fabrication defect, or a matter reaches formal proceedings, the technical answer has to survive examination by people whose job is to attack it.
MTIS provides that evidence. The same investigation discipline, written to a different standard: every conclusion traceable to the evidence that supports it, every limitation stated, and every alternative explanation addressed rather than omitted.
Where MTIS is instructed
- Supplier and fabrication disputes — material substitution, heat treatment, welding quality, non-conformity.
- Insurance claims — machinery breakdown, business interruption, and whether a failure arose from a defect, wear, misuse or an insured peril.
- Contractual disputes — whether a component met specification, and whether the specification was capable of the duty.
- Product liability — where a materials or manufacturing defect is alleged.
- Incident investigation support — where a fire, structural or lifting incident has a materials failure somewhere in the causal chain, and the lead investigator needs the metallurgy answered properly.
- Review of an opposing expert's report — whether its conclusions follow from its evidence.
How the work differs from an ordinary investigation
- Chain of custody from receipt. Every item logged on arrival, its condition recorded, its movements and handlers documented. The first question asked of any exhibit is whether anyone could have altered it.
- Notice before anything irreversible. Sectioning, hardness testing and metallography consume evidence. Where a dispute exists or may arise, the other parties are told before destructive work is carried out, so the result cannot later be excluded for want of that notice.
- Alternatives recorded, not discarded. Every mechanism considered is written down with the evidence that excludes it, rather than only the one that survived.
- Reasoning shown. Each conclusion traceable to the specific observation that supports it, so it can be examined rather than taken on trust.
- Limits stated. What the evidence cannot establish is set out as plainly as what it can.
What you receive
A forensic investigation report: what was examined, what was found, what mechanism the evidence supports, what it does not support, and where the evidence runs out. It is written to be read by engineers and to survive being read by people looking for holes in it.
If the matter later goes to a court or tribunal, that report becomes the foundation of a formal expert report — see Expert Witness, which sets out the Order 40A requirements and the capacities in which MTIS can act. Because the investigation was run to an evidential standard from the outset, little further work is needed to get there.
How an instruction runs
- Conflict check and scope. We confirm there is no conflict, and agree precisely what question is being asked.
- Preliminary view. Before a formal report, an initial opinion on whether the evidence is likely to support the position — so you can make a commercial decision early.
- Evidence examination. Physical evidence, records, photographs, testing where required through partner laboratories, with chain of custody documented from receipt.
- Report. Prepared to Order 40A, exhibited in an affidavit where the Court requires.
- Meetings of experts, and testimony where required.
Who provides the evidence
Instructions are taken by the MTIS directors, whose registrations and experience are set out on the About & People page — chartered engineers with industrial failure-investigation careers and senior academic appointments.
Instruct MTIS
An instruction begins with a conflict check, so we ask for the parties before anything else. The request form captures the matter, the forum, what physical evidence survives and what has already happened to it.
Request a forensic investigation →
If nothing is in dispute and you simply need to know why something failed, the shorter project quote request is the right route.