Scio is a risk analysis tool for those who want more value from their FMEAs (Failure Mode Effects Analysis) than they are currently getting.

Yes if that is all you want, but the potential exists for so much more. The goal of the traditional FMEA process is to help improve products and processes, so risk of failure is systematically identified and reduced. If the goal of the FMEA team is not "better products and processes" then the value of the analysis is much less. SCIO's power exists to enable the value proposition.

For a small number of FMEAs spreadsheet tools are normally sufficient. But if you have lots of FMEAs and you are using the information in a serious manner, the power of the SCIO database becomes extremely useful. FMEAs, Control Plans, can be viewed as "documents" or as "data". When the "data" view is taken, enormous opportunities open up, and the power of the computer can be brought into play. FMEAs and Control Plans become "transparent".

Let's say, while creating an FMEA, the team determines a certain potential failure mode should be explored. The logical question is: have we encountered this before in other FMEAs, and if so, what was the cause determined to be then? To answer this question with and Excel file based system requires a lot of digging and reading which most teams will not take the trouble to do. SCIO, on the other hand, provides the answer instantly. To re-use that same entry in their own FMEA requires only a couple of clicks - in other words, no typing.

A manager needs to know the status of all of the Recommended Actions from the FMEA for a given program. To answer this with Excel requires opening all the appropriate FMEA documents and filtering, cutting and pasting worksheets together to form a list. An administrator can do this, of course, but it takes time, and what about the chance of mistakes and omissions? SCIO provides the answer in one step in seconds with no chance of mistakes.

A situation exists where the design control's test name and number have changed. That design control has been previously placed in 500 FMEAs over the past several years. To be consistent it should be corrected in all of them. This is a lot of work in Excel. With SCIO's ability to execute global changes (don't worry it's carefully controlled) the change takes seconds.

The corresponding question is - what is the business case for better FMEAs? After all, that is why SCIO was created. Many people focus on the direct cost of creating the FMEA. They see a team of people hashing through the process over several meetings and with a little multiplication they arrive at a cost and conclude: "if we did this faster it would cost less." This view omits consideration of the benefits of an FMEA.

To get a different perspective, the question should be asked: why perform and FMEA in the first place? The frequent answer, "because the customer says to", is a non-answer. Why does the customer require it? If you designed perfect products with perfect processes which never failed in the field, you would not need an FMEA. The goal of FMEAs is to reduce failures. Failures cost a lot, especially in terms of warrantee claims.

The real question is: would warrantee claims go up if FMEAs were eliminated? In other words, are FMEAs in any way a protection against that cost? If the answer is "no" then FMEAs are a waste of time and money and should be eliminated completely. If the answer is "yes", the next question is: would "better" FMEAs catch more problems and thus lower warrantee claims? If so, how much? Is 5% reduction too much? How about 1%? In any event, pick a number for a rough estimate and multiply it by the warrantee claim number. That's your cost justification for a better FMEA process and SCIO.

If you don't believe there is a correlation between improved FMEAs and reduced warrantee, then ask yourself if you have another method to systematically reduce warrantee. Many have tried and many have failed, but you might be the lucky one.

SCIO enforces the rules of the FMEA form, a spreadsheet does not. The rules exist to allow the FMEA to do its job of guiding clear thinking about failure modes, effects, causes, and controls. One aspect of these rules is the hierarchy of the information. SCIO enforces that hierarchy. In a spreadsheet the user must know the structure rules and fill the cells correctly, and that does not happen consistently.

SCIO has features to encourage consistent terminology which is vital to detecting patterns in FMEAs and raising their overall quality. Describing the same failure mode 5 different ways defeats attempts at deeper analysis of the FMEA information. SCIO, on the other hand, allows instant searching through all previous FMEAs for the same term, and immediate reuse of the entry. Standard terminology lists can also be easily loaded and accessed. SCIO's dynamically created "knowledgebase" queries provide access to previously used insights about failure modes, causes and effects.

Information that is used for decisions becomes better. SCIO allows the FMEA to answer questions and thus become a value added tool in the design process. For example, after a field failure, the natural question is "was this risk covered in the FMEA?" A question such as "are we using the best practice design or process controls everywhere we should be?" is easy to answer.

SCIO's unparalleled ability to link FMEAs into a consistent product structure is also key to higher quality analysis. The matrix analysis in SCIO enables an explicit chain to be drawn that links customer requirements to product functions to manufacturing processes steps. This feature exists in SCIO because to thoroughly assess risk, one must thoroughly understand all of these functional links. In other words, to reduce the risk of potential failures, one must completely understand how something is supposed to work. The better that understanding, the better the risk reduction.

SCIO is a mature, well polished product with numerous features designed to help new users. Data entry for FMEA and Control Plans is through the familiar, standard form.

The SCIO Assistant provides context sensitive hand-holding instructions for both how to run SCIO as well as what to put in the FMEA form. There is intelligent phase completion which operates in a manner identical to Excel. The FMEA form keeps the user oriented by showing the path to the current cell. Copy and paste operations allow easy re-use of previous FMEA entries. Drop down ranking tables provide consistent values for Severity, Occurrence and Detection. Instant, in cell calendar access is provided for assigning target dates for recommended actions. SCIO provides enormous power in a very friendly manner.

SCIO's uses the RDM embedded database from Birdstep Technology which underlies applications in a variety of industries. For a list of some other areas where this database is used, check out: www.birdstep.com/database/markets_served.php3

The advantages of this technology include speed, small footprint, zero administration, reliability, and multiple user access with excellent security.

This RDM database allows access to other corporate systems though the exchange of XML data. This, of course, requires detailed specifications to be defined for proper development, but the key point is that the data in the SCIO database can be easily integrated with the greater corporate computing environment as needed.

In January 2006, SCIO will also operate from IBM's DB2 database which provides the ultimate in power and accessibility.

For more on DB2 see: www-306.ibm.com/software/data/db2/

This is further evidence that SCIO is on the cutting edge of technology and paves the way for your FMEAs to fulfill their true goal of risk reduction. If you haven't reached the limits of your Excel file based FMEA methods yet, it is only a matter of time before you will. If you view FMEAs as important corporate documents, it only makes sense to treat them with the consideration they deserve.

The short answer is yes. SCIO's web services allow FMEAs to be located and viewed with a simple web browser.

The database query tool, named the SCIO manager, provides the ability to specify and retrieve any data in any field of the FMEA and Control Plan. The queries can be easily saved and re-used. The resulting data set can be exported to Excel or other applications where there are many options for report formatting.

For a "standard report" which will be run repeatedly, PLATO-Ag. offers a report authoring service. With this, there are no limits (beyond that imposed by current technology) to how the data can be extracted and reported.

SCIO has an Excel import module which can read and convert legacy FMEAs directly into the database. The importer correctly constructs the hierarchy of the FMEA in SCIO so the result is identical to what would be entered directly. PLATO-Ag. also offers an excellent converter for IQ-FMEA files. Each legacy conversion is a unique situation which should be carefully considered before proceeding.

There are two main sources for information about SCIO: PlanTech, Inc. at 248-737-2100. You may also download our brochures and additional case studies.

Of course, one of the best ways to learn about SCIO is to get your hands on the keyboard, so we provide a 90-day free demo of a fully functional product. It installs easily and contains sample data to use for experiments. Please contact us to obtain a free CD.

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