Status of FMECA research and engineering application

As a basic reliability analysis method, FMECA is proved to be effective and efficient to ensure the reliability of product. The aim of our work is to present the status of FMECA research and engineering application, and give engineers more experience to do this work promoting the applications of the technology. With the developing of FMECA technology, application in space, aeronautics, automotive and electronics industries becomes more and more widely. Firstly, FMECA military standards and automotive and electronic industries standards are introduced. There are lots of studies in FMECA. Risk analysis, computer aided analysis, failure effect analysis and timed FMECA are widely studied all over the world. In China, more attention is paid to the use of simulation tools in failure mode analysis methods. This study shows that, Many FMECA standards follow up with the latest developments. For example, QS9000 has pointed out that risk assessment using the RPN is unreasonable. FMECA methods are constantly improving and expanding in order to meet the demand of application. However, application of FMECA method of different organization is unbalanced. Like NEC, Philips and other large international companies pay lots of attention to inter-department cooperation and the accumulation of data. FMECA plays an important role in these companies. On the contrary, FMECA in some companies is just a work, cannot integrate in design.