Tool Support for Incremental Failure Mode and Effects Analysis of Component-Based Systems

Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a well-known technique widely used for safety assessment in the area of safety-critical systems. However, FMEA is traditionally done manually which makes it both time-consuming and costly, specially for large and complex systems. Also, small modifications in the design may result in a complete revision of the initial FMEA. This paper presents a tool support for automated incremental component-based FMEA of SW and HW. It is based on component safety interfaces and a formal compositional safety analysis method. This tool support enables engineers to focus on more important steps in the safety assessment process. Also, during system upgrades, the tool incrementally registers the changes and identifies possible effects in the FMEA which enables the use of earlier safety analysis results. Finally, this formal approach based on design models of the components and the system always creates FMEAs which are consistent with the system design.