Method for analyzing risks in a technical project

• US 20070255583A1
• Filed: 04/11/2007
• Published: 11/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens AG
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Sturm, Alexander, Maeckel, Oliver, Sporer, Ralph, Ehlers, Peter, Goerisoh, Andre, Dreimann, Markus
• Granted Patent: US 8,744,893 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0635 Risk analysis of enterprise or organisation activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

A method analyzes risks in a technical project for developing or manufacturing a technical system or technical components or a technical process, wherein the following steps are carried out in a risk identification process: a) provision or determination of a large number of qualitative evaluations of risks in the technical project; b) determination of a large number of quantitative evaluations of the risks; c) comparison of the qualitative and quantitative evaluations for each risk, as a result of which a comparison outcome is established for each risk; d) definition of a permissible region of comparison outcomes; e) classification of the risks that are situated outside the permissible region as implausible risks; f) analysis of the implausible risks in order to identify uncertainties in the risk analysis and further risks.

Claims

1. A method for analyzing risks in developing at least a portion of a technical system, comprising:

performing a large number of qualitative evaluations of risks in the technical system;

performing a large number of quantitative evaluations of the risks;

comparing the qualitative and quantitative evaluations for each risk to produce a comparison outcome for each risk;

defining a permissible region for comparison outcomes;

classifying each risk having a comparison outcome outside of the permissible region as an implausible risk; and

analyzing the implausible risks in order to identify uncertainties in the method for analyzing risks and to identify further risks.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the quantitative evaluations are monetary evaluations.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the evaluations are compared and the permissible region is defined in such a way that the comparison outcome for each risk is a position of the qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the risk in a two-dimensional graph, the qualitative evaluation scale being plotted on one axis of the graph and the quantitative evaluation scale being plotted on another axis of the graph.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the permissible region is a delimited region in the two-dimensional graph.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein each risk is assigned a probability of occurrence and a monetary amount of damage upon occurence, the quantitative evaluation upon being a function of probability of occurrence multiplied by the monetary amount of damage.

6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the risks are depicted as flat objects in the two-dimensional graph, the size of each flat object depicting the probability of occurrence of the corresponding risk.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein at least one risk is assigned an event, the occurrence of which corresponds to the occurrence of the risk.

8. The method as claimed in claim 7, wherein the event causes the risk.

9. The method as claimed in claim 7, wherein the event defines a consequence of the risk.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the risks comprise project risks.

11. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the risks comprise warranty risks.

12. The method as claimed in claim 11 wherein

each risk is assigned a probability of occurrence and a monetary amount of damage upon occurrence, the quantitative evaluation being a function of the probability of occurrence multiplied by the monetary amount of damage, and

the probability of occurrence of a warranty risk is probability of damage covered by a warranty to a technical component within a predefined operating period of the technical component multiplied by a quantity of technical components and a monetary amount of damage covered by the warranty for the technical component.

13. The method as claimed in claim 1, the qualitative evaluations comprise intuitive evaluations of the respective risks, the intuitive evaluations being performed by questioning people involved in developing the technical system.

14. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the qualitative evaluations originate at least partly from a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis FMEA technical risk analysis.

15. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein risks are analyzed after a risk identification process.

16. The method as claimed in claim 15, wherein, in analyzing the risks, the risks are divided into evaluation classes as a function of their respective quantitative evaluations, the evaluation classes comprising “

tolerable”

, “

critical”

, and “

catastrophic”

.

17. The method as claimed in claim 16, wherein each quantitative evaluation is determined by a probability of occurrence and a monetary damage amount, the amount of monetary damage being plotted on one axis of a two-dimensional graph and the the probability of occurrence being plotted on another axis of

the graph.

18. The method as claimed in claim 17, wherein

delimited regions are defined in the two-dimensional graph, each delimited region corresponding to one of the evaluation classes, and

positions of the risks in the two-dimensional graph determine respective evaluation classes.

19. The method as claimed in claim 17, wherein the risks are depicted as flat objects in the two-dimensional graph, the size of each flat object corresponding to the qualitative evaluation of the risk.

20. The method as claimed in claim 15, wherein

each quantitative evaluation is determined by a probability of occurrence and a monetary damage amount of the risk,

the risks are subdivided into accounting groups as a function of their probabilities of occurrence, and

the risks are treated differently in a financial balance sheet of a company as a function of the accounting group.

21. The method as claimed in claim 20, wherein

risks with a probability of occurrence of more than 80% are included in the balance sheet with their monetary damage amount, and

risks with a probability of occurrence of 80% or less are included in the balance sheet with their quantitative evaluation.

22. The method as claimed in claim 21, wherein risks with a probability of occurrence of less than 50% are added together and reported in the balance sheet as a single item.

23. The method as claimed in claim 15, wherein the method for analyzing risks is followed by an action planning process for reducing the risks, the quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the risks being performed again following the action planning process with the risks being compared before and after the action planning process.

24. The method as claimed in claim 23, wherein, following the action planning process, monetary costs of planned corrective measures are estimated and compared with cumulative quantitative evaluations of the risks before and after the action planning process.

25. The method as claimed in claim 23, wherein the quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the risks are assessed according to a risk assessment process following the action planning process.