Failure Modes and Effects Analyses – Basic Principles and Specific Adaptation to Interface Dominated Systems

摘要

Working in the area of safety related communication systems we have been using various kinds of Failure Modes and Effects Analyses (FMEA). We found none, though, which fully met our needs. Based on the understanding, that the underlying Principles for hardware FMEA, for Functional FMEAs or for Hazard and Operability Studies (HAZOPs) are always the same (devise an appropriate model, depending on the current development phase and the intent of the analysis - e.g. hardware components, functions, processes, etc. - break down the system as far as necessary, try to find all theoretically possible failure modes and discuss with experts the effects of those failure modes) we adopted the FMEA principle to a so called "Interface FMEA". This method, as the name implies, is especially focused on interactions between various system elements, both internal and external, the latter of which is often neglected. As interfaces are a central element of communication systems this method is best suited for such systems in the safety related area. The feedback within our company is very promising and we are even actively asked by new projects to perform such analyses. The paper describes basic considerations about failure modes and effects analyses, the Interface FMEA and a practical implementation thereof.