MBSE-assisted FMEA approach — Challenges and opportunities

This paper presents an “MBSE-Assisted FMEA” approach. The approach is evolutionary in nature and accommodates the current NASA and Air Force FMEA procedures and practices required for many of their contracts; therefore, it can be implemented immediately. The approach considers current MBSE philosophy, methods, and tools, introducing them gradually to evolve the current FMEA process to a model-based failure modes, causes, and effects generation process. To assist the implementation of this transitioning process from current FMEA to the Model-Based FMEA, the paper discusses challenges and opportunities/benefits that can help establish a feasible and viable near term and long term implementation plan. With the MBSE-Assisted FMEA as a near term approach and Model-Based FMEA as a longer term implementation goal, FMEA will become a more effective and cost efficient reliability process that is integrated with MBSE to support Design-for-Reliability and Model-Based Mission Assurance activities.