Systems Engineering Articles

A Systems Approach to Failure Modes, Mechanisms, Effects and Causes  The use of Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), in all its incarnations, is ubiquitous throughout industry and commerce, yet its deployment is often fraught with difficulty and its application ephemeral. Full article

Introduction to Robust Design - What is it and what does it do?  Robust Design is more than a tool; it is complete methodology that can be used in the design of systems (products or processes) to ensure that they perform consistently in the hands of the customer. It comprises a process and tool kit that allows the designer to assess the impact of variation that the system is likely to experience in use, and if necessary redesign the system if it is found to be sensitive. Full article

A Functional Approach to Quality Function Deployment (Putting the Function back into Quality Function Deployment) This paper presents an approach that greatly facilitates conducting Phase 1 of Quality Function Deployment through the alignment of a Holistic Requirements Model to the structure of the Phase 1 chart. Based upon Systems Thinking, this alignment is also shown to provide a Requirements Architecture for the future phases and charts of Quality Function Deployment. A simple case study is presented to illustrate the mechanism and the Requirements Architecture.