Break down the manufacturing or design system into components/steps. 3. Function Analysis Describe what each item or process step is intended to do. 4. Failure Analysis
The handbook is nearly impossible to implement effectively with spreadsheets. It requires dedicated FMEA software (e.g., APIS IQ, Relyence, Siemens Polarion) to manage the database-style relationships between functions, failures, and causes. This imposes a significant cost barrier for small suppliers.
A new addition to the handbook is . This is used for analyzing systems that have built-in monitoring and failsafe mechanisms (e.g., a sensor that shuts down an engine if it overheats).
This is a major improvement over older versions, which often jumped directly to failures without formally defining functions.