Maintenance Mindset: The hidden DNA of reliable systems

There is a phrase I learned from my mom when I was 8. It is from biology that still has meaning when in engineering: Haeckel’s Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny.

My mother was the most-read person I ever met yet didn’t graduate from high school. She shared many concepts with us and one idea was that the development of an individual mirrors the evolution of its species. Haeckel’s idea was that, as an embryo develops, it passes through stages resembling adult forms of its evolutionary ancestors. For example, a human embryo at one stage shows gill-like slits similar to those of fish, which Haeckel interpreted as reflecting our aquatic ancestry.

My mom never thought the biology behind it was never quite right, but the concept describes something familiar to anyone who builds, tests, or measures for a living – development reflects evolution. What works survives, what fails is replaced, and what endures becomes reliable.

Development as a process of correction

Nothing begins perfect. A design, a measurement, even an idea starts as a rough outline. A sketch on a bar napkin or scribbles on a white-board; ideas are born and hopefully developed. We learn what to keep by watching what fails. The first version of a new process or component is often overbuilt and uncertain. Then the tuning begins, tolerances tighten, and excess is trimmed. The system grows more stable with each cycle. The idea becomes a living thing. The path from concept to precision follows the same pattern as life developing from simple to complex. Sounds like life. 

Biological development is guided by feedback from the environment. Engineering development follows feedback from data. Both are learning systems. Reliability is not created in a single step, it is the product of many small corrections that build upon one another until variation becomes predictable and response becomes trustworthy.

Inheritance and memory

Every reliable system carries a record of its own history just like we carry our genes - the history of our ancestors (both positive and some negative). Our machines are perfected by the notes from earlier versions, scars on test equipment, even the unwritten habits of the people who maintain it are part of that memory. You can see it in the progression of drawings, in the way procedures become refined, and in the caution built into experienced hands. That is the phylogeny of a design, the long trail of lessons that keep it from failing the same way twice.

Calibration of instruments and thought

Machines drift and so do people. The principle of calibration applies equally to instruments and to thinking. Both need a known reference to stay accurate. In the lab or workshop, that reference might be a certified standard, a ruler / calipers, a reference table.  In thought, it is data, experience, and honest review. Recalibration is not about doubt, it is about respect for reality.

When we check, recheck, and correct, we keep our systems and our reasoning aligned with the world they are meant to describe. This is the foundation of both measurement and truth.

Progress not paralysis

Reliability evolves, it must. It has to by design. It is the sum of what has been proven to work under repeated stress. In biology, that means survival. In engineering, it means service life, repeatability, and confidence in data. The parallel is clear: both depend on feedback and adaptation. The systems that last are the ones that keep learning. Building a ‘smart’ system is the only type to build. 

Haeckel’s phrase may have missed the mark in biology, but it captures something essential about progress. Development recapitulates reliability. Every cycle of design, test, and correction mirrors the same process that shaped life itself, that of progress.  Each time we measure more carefully, design more thoughtfully, or question our assumptions, we continue that long history of adaptation.

Reliability, in the end, is not only a property of machines. It is a way of thinking.