FREE WEBINAR - October 7, 2015 Host: Ops A La Carte Speaker: Robert Mueller, Senior Reliability Engineer Date: October 7, 2015 Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm Pacific Time Root Cause Analysis of software defects continues to confirm that design defects remain the dominate root cause of software system failures. Yet, few non-regulated software development teams using ‘agile’ development methodologies emphasize formal design reviews in their processes. The design Failure Mode & Effects Analysis methodology (dFMEA) is a proven review tool for enhancing the reliability of a product’s design. Incorporating key elements of dFMEA methodology into each iteration of the ‘agile’ development process gives the product development team a continuously increasing product reliability growth profile from …
FMEA/FMECA
FMEAs linking within Supply Chain and Company Processes
FMEA method is quite known today. There are a lot of guides, articles, and standards written about FMEA method. However, not so much written about FMEA links-relationship between FMEAs and other processes. Are these links important? To have a really strong FMEA approach we should take into consideration links-outputs/inputs between FMEA´s. In most cases we develop/produce products within supply chain where our product is part of upper system or customer application and consist from components co-developed/produced by our suppliers. We are located betwen customer domain and supplier domain. Each domain has own FMEA (Application FMEA and Supplier FMEAs). The key point is to create interfaces betwen domain FMEAs. When we don´t care these interfaces than we develop “our product“ not …
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A Novel FMECA Approach
A client developed a novel FMECA technique that I think has much to recommend it. A key difference lies in the way “Occurrence” is handled. Generally, when we develop a FMECA, we assign a somewhat-arbitrary number (1 – 10) to the occurrence factor. In this approach, the failure rate (in FIT’s) is used for each of the components. The total of the FIT’s for the components in the subsystem considered is then used to normalize the FIT for each component. In this way, the most critical components can be determined. The total can also be rolled up to the next higher level. Another feature of this approach is that the failure mode of the component (for example: open, shorted, parameter change) can be included in the analysis since, in some cases, a particular failure mode can have a more …
DFMEA acc. to VDA – 5 steps approach
VDA-German Automotive Industry Society describes process of system FMEA building. I would like to highlight 3 key areas of VDA approach: Functional analysis Failure analysis The process consists from following steps: Product breakdown to system levels Functional description of system Failure Analysis Risks Evaluation Risk Optimization First step is about definition of system. Team breakdown system into several level which depend on scope of analysis eg. sensor-sensing element-sensing element characteristics. Output of this step is system structure net. In second step team define requirements, functions and characteristics into each element of product structure. Logic behind is describe how requirements should be ensured by functions and characteristics/parameters. Objective …
FMEA – DETECTION RATING CONFUSION
FMEA is great tool used in many quality, reliability, and risk analysis processes. It is not a highly sophisticated tool and is certainly not technically complex. As a reliability tool, the FMEA is extremely effective in identifying the risks of greatest concern and thus focusing design and test activities to eliminate that risk or reduce it to tolerable levels. Even though there is software available to assist in performing the FMEA, a spreadsheet is often adequate. Getting the proper team together with the patience to conscientiously fill out the spreadsheet is often a more difficult task. A typical FMEA process for a design FMEA might be composed of the following steps: ¨ Step 1: Review the Process/Design ¨ Step 2: Brainstorm potential failure modes ¨ Step 3: …
