Success Story: FMEA-Integration mit IBM Engineering

Success Story: 20 % Time savings through the integration of FMEA into the engineering environment

Project content and brief description

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is used to identify and visualise avoidable risks in the manufacture of a product. Used in an early development phase, FMEA helps to avoid or significantly reduce high consequential costs during production. Stand-alone FMEA software tools are often used in combination with other common tools. A major disadvantage of this tool-mix utilisation is the manual data exchange, which involves a great deal of effort. GADV has developed a seamless integration into IBM's Engineering Lifecycle Management for a market-leading FMEA software at a global automotive supplier. The numerous automated processes and useful functions avoid unnecessary additional work in this area.

Customer requirements

Integration of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) into the development area (ALM/PLM).

Integration of the widely used FMEA stand-alone software into the existing IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management to avoid unnecessary duplication of work.

Addition of functions such as versioning, variant management and access rights.

Long-term archiving of FMEAs and accompanying documents.

Monitoring of assigned actions and measures.

Mapping of defined workflows and associated approval processes.

Additional overview options for FMEAs as well as evaluation and search options

Solution

The following measures were implemented to integrate the FMEA software:

Integration of FMEA software into IBM Engineering Workflow Management (EWM).

Automated bi-directional connection of the FMEA tool via the GADV interface.

The GADV solution includes the following key features:

Versioning of individual FMEAs during the processing phase.

Variant management and summary of FMEAs for product variants.

Fully automated archiving of the associated documents.

Automated evaluation and monitoring of assigned actions and measures.

Workflow mapping including approval processes.

Interfaces to other applications such as product databases and key performance indicator management.

Diverse evaluation, search and filter functions across all FMEA

Value for the customer

By integrating and automating FMEAs and processes in IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management, the following benefits were achieved:

20% time savings.

Integration of autonomously operating FMEA tools into systems engineering tool landscapes.

More agile processes.

Effective verification and compliance with standards and specifications in the area of safety and risk analysis.

Overview of the FMEA dates to be monitored and more transparency about results.

Reduction of many previously necessary manual interventions and inputs, as well as avoidance of handling errors. Improved collaboration through personalised task assignment.

Compliance with standards, test specifications and new regulations without additional effort.

The integration between FMEA and engineering forms the basis for traceability, impact analyses and compliance with standards and specifications, such as automotive ISO 26262, SOTIF (Safety Of The Intended Functionality), Automotive SPICE (ASPICE), IEC 61508 and other standards.