Competing Risks in Failure Time Data

What happens when a product can fail in more than one way? In the real world, systems rarely have a single, predictable failure point. Instead, we face competing risks, where multiple potential failure modes are all vying to be the one that brings a system down. Standard survival analysis (also called life data analysis) often falls short here, as it can't distinguish between these different outcomes.

This article tackles that challenge head-on, introducing you to the essentials of competing risks analysis. More than just theory, this is a practical, step-by-step tutorial. Using a clear example dataset and complete R code, you will learn how to properly model and interpret failure data when multiple failure modes are present, a crucial skill for any serious reliability professional.