Failure Effect Categorization (FEC)

The Failure Effect Categorization window allows you to evaluate and categorize the effects of each functional failure, which can help the RCM analysis team to prioritize and choose the appropriate maintenance strategy to address the issues that have been identified.

Authorized users can define the questions and categories that will be used for this portion of the analysis. If you want to edit the questions and categories for the current project only, go to the Configurable Settings page of the Project Properties window and click the View/Edit Settings icon at the right side of the FEC Logic drop-down list.

If you want to define questions and categories that could be applied to other projects also, use the Profiles/Library Manager to update the active library and then return to the Project Properties window and apply the questions and categories to the current project. If you want the settings to apply only to the current project, change the settings in the Project Properties window only.

Note: As a reminder, settings are copied from the active library to each project, not linked. You can reselect a profile and have the most current settings applied to the project.

There are three ways to access the Failure Effect Categorization window, you can:

• Select an existing effect and choose FMEA > FMEA Records > Effects > Effect Categorization.

• Click the View/Edit Effect Categorization button that appears when you click the FEC field in the Effect Properties window.

• In the Task Manager, click Effect Categorization.

To begin the failure effect categorization process, answer Question 1 by selecting the Yes or No option. After doing so, the Answer 1 field on the right side of the window becomes available. You can use this field to document the reasons why the team chose the answer they did. To save time and ensure consistency, you can select from responses that have been set for this question for other effects. Click the Select Existing button next to the input field to open the Select Existing Text window.

Your answer to a question determines which of the following questions must be answered. Continue answering the rest of the applicable questions by selecting the Yes or No option and documenting the reasons, if desired. After you have answered the last question, the FEC category will be highlighted at the bottom of the window.

The FEC will also appear in the Category box on the right side of the window. You can select the category directly from the drop-down list in the Category box; doing this will automatically set the answers to the categorization questions and enable the appropriate answer fields.

Click OK to set the category. The failure effect categorization will also appear in the FEC column in the Analysis panel, if the column is displayed. To hide or display columns, right-click the column headers in the FMEA hierarchy view, then click Customize Columns to select which columns you want to display. These settings are stored per computer/username in the FMEA Hierarchy page of the Application Setup, so any project that you open on this computer will have the same columns displayed.

 Clear All: Clears all entries and selections made in the window.

 Spelling: Checks the spelling of the text in all input boxes within the window.

The status bar at the bottom of the window displays the date/time of the last change to the failure effect categorization and the user who made the change.