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Overview of Design FMECA

A failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) “is a method in which an item or a process is broken down into elements and, for each element in turn, failure modes and effects are identified and analysed. This is to identify any required improvements by eliminating adverse effects or reducing their likelihood or severity. The purpose of adding a criticality analysis [FMECA] is to enable prioritization of the failure modes for potential treatment.” (BS EN IEC 60812:2018, Failure modes and effects analysis, p. 14).

Performing a design FMECA with APM involves identifying asset types, the environment and conditions in which they are used, their functions and performance requirements, as well as the ways in which they can fail and the causes and consequences of failure. Using this information, the analyst and team can develop failure management policies for each asset. From a rigorous and thorough analysis of key assets, they can develop effective reliability programs for preventing or managing asset failures.

To perform an analysis, the team:

•	Selects the asset types to be analyzed, creates an analysis for each, and arranges them in a hierarchy of analyses

•	Identifies one or more functions for each asset type

•	For each function, identifies the ways in which the asset can fail (functional failures), the events or conditions that cause failures (failure modes), and the effect of each failure mode

•	Identifies failure consequences by performing failure mode risk assessments. This determines which failure modes have the highest priority

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Evaluates the consequences of the failure mode. The team determines whether the failure is evident or hidden and then categorizes the consequence as safety-related, environmental, operational, or non-operational. A recommended action is selected for each failure mode, for example, condition-based maintenance or modification/redesign

•	Optionally evaluates the economic feasibility of implementing proposed maintenance tasks. With the help of the maintenance efficiency index (MEI), APM uses the avoidance savings and task costs to determine if the proposed tasks are justified or not

•	Depending on the type of action, adds indicator templates, one or more task templates, or standard documents to the action plan. In some cases, one or more secondary actions can be recommended for a failure mode

In addition to these components, the decision diagram provides a graphical summary of the hidden, safety, environmental, operational, and non-operational consequences that the team identified in the analysis.

Using Isograph Availability Workbench

Using the integration functionality in APM, you can export failure modes from analyses in APM to the Isograph Availability Workbench (AWB), where you can analyze and optimize the data. You can then import optimization results into the APM analysis, review the recommendations in the Optimization view, and make appropriate changes to the action plans.

Before you can export failure modes, you must have installed the Availability Workbench with a valid license. Your APM license must include the Reliability Strategy Development and Implementation and Performance Management modules, and the modules must be active on the sites where you want to use the functionality.

For information about using this functionality, see APM Integration Guide for Isograph Availability Workbench.

Design FMECA and Failure Tracking

If your organization tracks asset failures using APM, you can link each failure record that references a failure mode to an existing design FMECA. You can also use a failure record as the starting point for a new analysis. For more information, see Failure Tracking.