SOFTWARE FAILURE MODE AND EFFECT ANALYSIS (SFMEA) - Software Design for Six-Sigma: A Roadmap for Excellence - page 413

TABLE 16.1 Hardware vs. Software FMEA Characteristics

Hardware FMEA Software FMEA

States the criticality and the measures
taken to prevent or mitigate the
consequences.
May be performed at functional level or
part level.
Applies to a system considered as free
from failed components.
Postulates failures of hardware
components according to failure modes
caused by ageing, wearing, or stress.
Analyzes the consequences of these
failures at system level.

States the criticality and describes the
measures 6 taken to prevent or mitigate
the consequences.
Is only practice at functional level.
Applies to a system considered as
containing software faults that may lead
to failure under triggering conditions.
Postulates failures of software
components according to functional
failure modes caused by potential
software faults.
Analyzes the consequences of these
failures at system level.

General Motors Corporation (Detroit, MI) developed the QS 9000 standard in an
effort to standardize supplier quality systems. QS 9000 is the automotive analogy
to the better known standard ISO 9000. QS 9000-compliant automotive suppliers
must use FMEA in the advanced quality planning process and in the development of
their quality control plans. The effort made by the task force led to an industry-wide
FMEA standard SAE J-1739 issued by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
in 1994.
Academic discussion on FMEA originates from the 1960s when studies of com-
ponent failures were broadened to include the effects of component failures on the
system of which they were a part. One of the earliest descriptions of a formal approach
for performing an FMEA was given at the New York Academy of Sciences (Coutinho,
1964). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several professional societies published for-
mal procedures for performing the analysis. The generic nature of the method assisted
the rapid broadening of FMEA to different application areas, and various practices
fundamentally using the same analysis method were created. Along with the digital
revolution, the FMEA was applied in the analysis of software-based systems, and
one of the first articles regarding SFMEA was given in 1979 (Reifer, 1979). Even
thought there is no explicit standard for SFMEA, the standard IEC 60812, published
in 1985, often is referred to when carrying out FMEA for software-based systems.
The failure mode and effects analysis for hardware or software has certain distin-
guishing characteristics. Ristord and Esmenjaud (2001) discussed these characteris-
tics, and they are listed in Table 16.1.
FMEA methodology was started on software-based systems. A historic progres-
sion of major contributions is listed in Table 16.2.

6 Measures, for example, can show that a fault leading to the failure mode necessarily will be detected by
the tests performed on the component or will demonstrate that there is no credible cause leading to this
failure mode because of the software design and coding rules applied.