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FRACAS: From Data Collection To Problem Solving

FRACAS (Failure Reporting, Analysis and Corrective Action System) is a process that originated in the defense and aerospace industries to track failures, analyze problems, and ensure corrective actions are implemented. A web-based FRACAS tool called XFRACAS provides an organization-wide platform to connect reliability-related management and analysis activities. FRACAS establishes a formal workflow to identify and prevent recurring failures, provide data for reliability improvement, and document lessons learned. Implementing FRACAS involves tailoring it to an organization's needs, defining the FRACAS process, and using it to capture incident reports, failure analyses, and resolution of problems.

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246 views

FRACAS: From Data Collection To Problem Solving

FRACAS (Failure Reporting, Analysis and Corrective Action System) is a process that originated in the defense and aerospace industries to track failures, analyze problems, and ensure corrective actions are implemented. A web-based FRACAS tool called XFRACAS provides an organization-wide platform to connect reliability-related management and analysis activities. FRACAS establishes a formal workflow to identify and prevent recurring failures, provide data for reliability improvement, and document lessons learned. Implementing FRACAS involves tailoring it to an organization's needs, defining the FRACAS process, and using it to capture incident reports, failure analyses, and resolution of problems.

Uploaded by

shahrukhkhalid1359
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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FRACAS: From Data Collection to Problem Solving

Testing, data collecting and data analysis are probably the three major daily tasks for most
reliability engineers. How to utilize the modern database and Internet technology to manage the
testing, data collecting and problem solving process across multiple departments is a
challenging issue that many organisations are facing. XFRACAS, a web-based FRACAS tool from
ReliaSoft, provides an organisation-wide platform that connects all the reliability-related
management and analysis activities together.

What is FRACAS?  Providing information from failure analysis


and corrective actions in order to support
FRACAS stands for Failure Reporting, Analysis reliability data analysis.
and Corrective Action System. The FRACAS  Providing report summaries of incidents
process originated from the defence and counts, and providing data used for
aerospace industries in the 1970s. It was an reliability and quality metrics.
essential element in the early and sustained
achievement of the reliability and maintainability As an example, the following screenshots show
potential inherent in military systems, equipment portions of the failure/incident reporting page from
and associated software. ReliaSoft’s XFRACAS software tool.

Since the late 1970s and through the 1980s, major


players in defence, aerospace, automotive and
telecommunications worldwide invested millions of
dollars to develop and support in-house FRACAS-
related software using spreadsheets and
databases. In 1985, the MIL-STD-2155 standard
was created to standardise the scope, definition
and implementation of the FRACAS process.

What can FRACAS do?


The FRACAS method is used in many applications,
such as safety/risk reduction systems, process
control systems and incident reporting systems. It
provides a disciplined and aggressive closed-loop
process for solving issues at the design,
development, production and deployment stages.
The fundamental tasks include:

 Recording and capturing information about


failures and problems.
 Identifying, selecting and prioritising Fig. 1: Screenshots from XFRACAS (Courtesy: ReliaSoft)
failures and problems. This web-based interface is highly configurable.
 Identifying, implementing and verifying Organisations can add, remove and define fields
corrective actions to prevent recurrence of based on their own needs.
failures.

t: +44 (0) 161 474 7479 WildeAnalysis.co.uk e: [email protected]


Business Benefits status of each team member's current tasks. In
addition to the system’s powerful closed-loop
The FRACAS method promotes the reliability of a action management capabilities (automated e-mail
product or process by establishing a formal notifications, easily generated status reports, etc.),
workflow followed by the entire organisation. It XFRACAS allows users to create checklists, link or
gives the following benefits: attach related documents, query the "knowledge
base" of past issues/solutions and identify stages
 Provides engineering data for corrective (gates) that require formal review/approval.
actions and preventive actions.
 Identifies developing patterns of
deficiencies.
 Provides failure data for reliability analysis.
 Helps avoid recurrence of failures in future
designs.
 Provides a centralised location for lessons
learned, helping to reduce time and effort
for resolving both individual incidents as
well as problems.
 It is essential for Quality/ISO certifications
and audits.

The FRACAS method also promotes reliability


improvement throughout the life cycle of a product.
It can be used and applied during:

 Initial product design/redesign to identify


and eliminate known issues.
 In-house development testing to improve
the product, process or service.
 Field testing.
 Production and operations to increase Fig. 2: “8 Disciplines (8D) approach (Courtesy: ReliaSoft)
efficiencies.
 Capital equipment installation, reducing Implementing FRACAS
costs and time.
 Product support in the field (end- FRACAS can be applied in different ways. Best
user/customer). practices for implementing FRACAS include:

The FRACAS system is no longer limited to simple  Tailor FRACAS to meet specific needs.
failure reporting, analysis and correction, because  Define and develop the FRACAS process
it can be integrated with formal problem resolution and educate all teams involved.
methods such as the "8 Disciplines" (8D) approach  Ensure there is a clear distinction between
(Fig. 2). XFRACAS can also be configured to incidents and problems.
capture the details of failure analysis  At a minimum, provide support for incident
investigations. This gives a complete record of an reporting and resolution, failure analysis
organisation's response to a particular failure. and problem resolution.
ReliaSoft’s Weibull++ and RGA and Xfmea software  Strive to create a data repository of lessons
applications are integrated into XFRACAS, learned and reliability data to support
facilitating use of failure data to perform reliability further analyses.
analysis. XFRACAS also provides database Adapted with permission from ‘Reliability Hotwire’, issue 169,
features such as querying, tracking and reporting. ReliaSoft. For further information please visit
Users can easily track the progress of projects and http://www.reliasoft.com/ and
http://wildeanalysis.co.uk/reliability/software.
uncover bottleneck problems, as well as track the

t: +44 (0) 161 474 7479 WildeAnalysis.co.uk e: [email protected]

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