Redundancy
In engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system. In safety-critical systems, such as fly-by-wire aircraft, some parts of the control system may be triplicated. An error in one component then may then be out-voted by the other two. In a triply redundant system, the system has three sub components, all three of which must fail before the system fails. Since each one rarely fails, and the sub components are expected to fail independently, the probability of all three failing is calculated to be extremely small. See safety engineering.
In information theory, redundancy is the number of bits used to transmit a message minus the number of bits of actual information in the message. Data compression is a way to eliminate such redundancy.
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In employment law, redundancy is the dismissal of an employee when his or her job becomes unnecessary. UK redundancy law allows three reasons for redundancy:
- Total cessation of the employer's business (whether permanently or temporarily)
- Cessation of business at the employee's workplace
- Reduction in the number of workers required to do a particular job.
The law requires the employer to make a statutory redundancy payment, which is tax-free and is based on the employee's length of service, as long as the employee has served a minimum of two years. The employee is not allowed to claim redundancy if he or she was offered an alternative position with similar salary, status and responsibilities.
