Failure modes, effects and criticality analyses.

Failure mode, effects and criticality analyses were developed by NASA as a means of assuring that hardware built for space applications has the desired reliability characteristics. The failure mode and effects analysis is a qualitative reliability technique for systematically analyzing each possible failure mode within a hardware system, and identifying the resulting effect on that system, the mission and personnel. The criticality analysis is a quantitative procedure which ranks the critical failure modes according to their probability of occurrence. This paper describes the failure modes, effects analysis and the criticality analysis. It employs a simple hardware system, not related to the aerospace field, to illustrate the method. It encourages application of this type of analysis to industrial development programs outside the aerospace and defense complex.