FMEA and Related Analyses

Support for all types of FMEA

XFMEA supports all types of FMEA analysis and provides extensive customization options to fit your analysis and reporting needs.

• Design FMEA (DFMEA)
• Process FMEA (PFMEA)
• System FMEA
• FMECA

Risk assessment methods

The software makes it easy to configure the analysis project to fit any of the risk assessment methodologies that are commonly employed in conjunction with FMEA.

• Configurable risk mitigation tools are available to evaluate risk based on Severity X Occurrence, Risk Priority Numbers (RPNs) and risk matrixes.
• Priority Highlights feature allows you to highlight issues based on specified criteria. This includes a customizable Risk Ranking Logic option that allows you to define both the priority levels and the logic used to assign certain issues to each level.
• Multiple severity scores per effect allows you to rate effects according to several different types of severity and then use the sub-severity ratings to calculate an overall severity rating for each effect, based on either the maximum or the average of the sub-severity ratings (except for grouped effects).
• XFMEA continues to provide support for both quantitative and qualitative Criticality Analysis patterned after MIL-STD-1629A. Instead of relying only on the assumption of an exponential distribution, XFMEA allows you to consider time-dependent distributions for describing the reliability/probability of failure.
• Quantitative Consequence Priority Numbers (QCPNs) is based on quantitative values associated with each rating in the severity, occurrence and detection rating scales.
• The Alpha/Beta Ratios criticality worksheet is used to calculate the likelihood of each effect occurring, assuming a known overall failure rate for the item.

P-Diagrams

Parameter Diagram (P-Diagram) is a structured tool that identifies the inputs from a system and relates those inputs to the desired system outputs, while considering the controlled and uncontrolled factors. It is useful in brainstorming and documenting input signals, noise factors, control factors, error states and ideal responses, and helps the FMEA team understand and make visible the robustness of the design that is being analyzed. It can provide important input to System and Design FMEAs.

Transfer Design FMEA to Process FMEA

Transferring relevant data from the Design FMEA can provide a useful starting point for a new Process FMEA. Flexible Transfer Projects utility allows you to specify what information will be transferred and how it will be mapped to the new analysis.

Test plans and DVP&Rs

Test Plan feature automatically generates a list of tests that need to be performed. This list is created on-the-fly based on actions and/or controls in the FMEA that are specifically designated to show in the test plan. Alternatively, you can continue to use integrated Design Verification Plan and Report (DVP&R) utility, which provides a configurable worksheet for design verification plans and reports. You can create each plan from scratch or import data from Excel. You also can transfer data from the FMEA that has been defined for the same item. Additionally, you can activate a change log for DVP&R analyses, which will record a history of the specific changes made in each tracked revision.

Process Control Plans (PCPs)

The Control Plan utility provides a configurable worksheet for process control plans. You can create a plan from scratch or import data from Excel. You also can transfer data from the FMEA that has been defined for the same item.

Process Flow Diagrams (PFDs)

A process flow diagram provides a logical, visual depiction of the process that is being analyzed. XFMEA allows you to integrate the diagram into a worksheet that captures more specific details about each step in the process. This worksheet records the specific operations that are performed and starts to identify the key product/process characteristics that need to be kept under control during manufacturing. XFMEA makes it easy to automatically transfer relevant data to the Process FMEA (PFMEA) and process control plan.

Design Reviews Based on Failure Mode (DRBFMs)

You can use the design review based on failure mode (DRBFM) methodology to evaluate proposed changes to an existing design. The DRBFM utility provides a configurable worksheet patterned after the method developed within Toyota Motor Corporation. The software makes it easy to import selected functions from an existing FMEA and to append selected data from the DRBFM to update the FMEA.

Data management tools

Flexible data management capabilities can save time on data entry, help to ensure consistency among analyses and even provide brainstorming tools that will improve the quality of your FMEAs. The software provides an array of tools to help you find and reuse descriptions from any existing analysis and to select phrases from predefined templates or phrase libraries. You also can use fully customizable Excel® templates to quickly import system configurations or analysis data from external data sources.

• Customized templates for imports, queries and reports
• Change log
• Analysis planning tool
• Links and attachments
• Find and replace
• Action alerts via e-mail, SMS text message or portal message
• Cause and effect diagrams
• Ability to track ancestry of each record

Failure Modes and Reliability Analysis (FMRA)

The failure modes and reliability analysis (FMRA) feature helps you to integrate statistical reliability analysis calculations into your FMEA activities. Specifically, this view can be used to:

• Display all of the FMEA records that could have an impact on system reliability in a single hierarchical tree and use this view to define the relevant reliability characteristics.
• Calculate the probabilities of failure required for a quantitative criticality analysis.
• Use the occurrence ratings that have been defined in the FMEA to generate a preliminary baseline reliability estimate for the system that can be improved later when actual failure data become available.
• Synchronize with BlockSim’s reliability block diagrams (RBDs) or fault trees, which facilitate more realistic system modeling (e.g., by considering redundancy, common cause failures, etc.).
• Allocate the target reliability and target availability. You can also push the calculated reliability/availability to metrics that allow you to display the information in other locations and track how the value has changed over time.

Queries, reports, charts and diagrams

You can generate reports in the tabular worksheet format that is commonly used for FMEAs and related analyses. However, because all the analysis information is stored in a relational database, XFMEA is able to go beyond these basic worksheets to provide a complete range of options for presenting the data in ways that will effectively communicate results and facilitate decision-making.

Configurable queries and print-ready reports
Use the Templates Manager to manage predefined and customized templates that can be made available to all database users, applied to any data set and incorporated into any print-ready report document.

• The Query Utility window is a powerful analysis tool that makes it easy to find and open specific sections of the analysis. It is also a flexible custom reporting tool that allows you to create and manage saved queries that meet your presentation requirements.
• The Reports window makes it easy to build report documents that include the predefined report forms, custom report forms and/or custom queries that will be most effective to present your analysis results. Since you can generate these documents directly in Microsoft Word or Excel, it is easy to customize and distribute reports without a specialized report editor or viewer. Click here to view sample reports.

You can save generated reports with the project, which enables all users to view/print the same report documents. If your organization chooses to implement SEP - web portal for ReliaSoft applications, you can also publish these reports to the portal (in Word, Excel, PDF or MHTML format), where they can be accessed from any web-enabled device.

FMEA/FMRA dashboards

You can create customized dashboards to present data from FMEA and FMRA analyses in XFMEA/RCM++. In addition, if your organization chooses to implement a web-based portal for an enterprise database, you can now share selected dashboards to be accessed from any web-enabled device.

Ancestry

The Ancestry Association Status in the system hierarchy is used to summarize the ancestry status of all associated record for that item. The status icons in the system hierarchy indicate the status of all associations that apply to the item. If the source record (or one of its dependents) for any descendant record included in the item's FMEA or test plan has changed, or if any source record has been deleted, the icon will be orange. A green icon indicates that no source records have been changed either since their descendants were created or since the last time a change notification for the descendants was dismissed.

Additionally, the ancestry information window can display when and by who the associated record was last updated.