9.2 Summary

FMEA and FMECA are very effective tools. They can be applied to a broad range of applications and industries and are effective in elucidating the vulnerabilities of a system and its subsystems. Like PHA, FMEA and FMECA are applied early in the design life of a system and are used to ensure that the system has no unidentified failure points. As with the Mars Global Surveyor, we have to determine up front what a failure is and what success is.