Cause and Effect Mapping for Failure Mode Effect Analysis Creation and Risk Management

• US 20150033080A1
• Filed: 07/23/2013
• Published: 01/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/23/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Halliburton Energy Services Incorporated (Halliburton Company)
• Original Assignee: Halliburton Energy Services Incorporated (Halliburton Company)
• Inventors: Lee, Daniel Voon Leng
• Granted Patent: US 9,430,311 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0703 Error or fault processing not based on redundancy, i.e. by taking additional measures to deal with the error or fault not making use of redundancy in operation, in hardware, or in data representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0769 Readable error formats, e.g. cross-platform generic formats, human understandable formats

Abstract

Disclosed are methods and computer-readable instructions for capturing and reporting information for a failure mode effects analysis. One method includes populating and generating a cause and effect map via a graphical user interface, the cause and effect map having a plurality of events interconnected with one or more propagation lines and of the plurality of events being associated with one or more potential failures of a component or subsystem of a system, performing a failure mode effects analysis (FMEA) on the cause and effect map, graphically depicting the cause and effect map to reflect risk based on the FMEA, and visually distinguishing at least one of the plurality of events.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

populating and generating a cause and effect map via a graphical user interface, the cause and effect map having a plurality of events interconnected with one or more propagation lines, and at least one of the plurality of events being associated with one or more potential failures of a component or subsystem of a system;

performing a failure mode effects analysis (FMEA) on the cause and effect map;

graphically depicting the cause and effect map to reflect risk based on the FMEA; and

visually distinguishing at least one of the plurality of events.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein visually distinguishing the at least one of the plurality of events comprises varying a color of the at least one of the plurality of events.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein visually distinguishing the at least one of the plurality of events comprises varying a border thickness of the at least one of the plurality of events.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein visually distinguishing the at least one of the plurality of events comprises varying a color of at least one of the one or more propagation lines.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein visually distinguishing the at least one of the plurality of events comprises varying a thickness of at least one of the one or more propagation lines.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the cause and effect map information in a database associated with the system.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising searching the cause and effect map for desired information.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising using data derived from the cause and effect map by a third-party program.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a representation of the cause and effect map in the form of an FMEA spreadsheet.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the FMEA spreadsheet comprises a list of possible causes and a list of possible further failures for at least one of the plurality of events.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising overriding an event output from at least one of the plurality of events using alternative user-input constants or programmed calculations.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising selectively passing data to at least one effect event of the plurality of events by applying a weighted formula to the data.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying the cause and effect map by inputting alternative or additional information.

14. A non-transitory computer readable medium including computer-readable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processor, configure the processor to perform functions including:

generating a cause and effect map populated via a graphical user interface, the cause and effect map having a plurality of events interconnected with one or more propagation lines, at least one of the plurality of event being associated with one or more potential failures of a component or subsystem;

performing a failure mode effects analysis (FMEA) on the cause and effect map;

graphically depicting the cause and effect map to reflect risk based on the FMEA; and

visually distinguishing at least one of the plurality of events.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein visually distinguishing the at least one of the plurality of events comprises at least one of varying a color of the at least one of the plurality of events, and varying a border thickness of the at least one of the plurality of events.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein visually distinguishing the at least one of the plurality of events comprises at least one of varying a color of at least one of the one or more propagation lines, and varying a thickness of at least one of the one or more propagation lines.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising searching the cause and effect map for desired information.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising generating a representation of the cause and effect map in the form of an FMEA spreadsheet, the FMEA spreadsheet comprising a list of possible causes and a list of possible further failures for at least one of the plurality of events.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising overriding an event output from at least one of the plurality of events using alternative programmed calculations.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising selectively passing data to at least one effect event of the plurality of events by applying a weighted formula to the data.