Software Failure Analysis using FMEA

Abstract

The reliability of safety-critical systems is of concern, a failure of which would result ininjury, death, damage to the environment or financial loss. Such systems have evolved frombeing largely mechanical to computer driven. The approach to analysing failure ofmechanical or hardware architecture of the system is well established in literature andpractice. Although the hardware architecture could be adequately analysed for failureusing traditional safety analysis techniques, the manner in which the software architectureis to be analysed for failures is fuzzy. This creates additional concern to the reliability ofcontemporary safety-critical systems. This paper defines an approach to analysing softwarefailure at class diagram using one of traditional safety analysis techniques, failure modesand effects analysis (FMEA). It also demonstrates how to apply the approach to analysingsoftware failure.