Patent ID: 8347146

Claim:
A method of assisting failure mode and effects analysis of a system having a plurality of components, the method comprising: obtaining data associated with at least one component and a group that includes the at least one component of the system; associating the at least one component with component type data and the group that includes the at least one component with group type data, wherein each of the component type data and the group type data include data relating to at least one failure feature common to each instance of the at least one component and the group that includes the at least one component associated with a respective type; and at least one of storing and transferring data of the at least one component, data of the group that includes the at least one component, component type data, and group type data for use in a failure mode and effects analysis of the system, wherein the data relating to the at least one failure feature includes a prior probability of the failure occurring, and at least one of a conditional probability of a symptom given one said failure, and a probability of a symptom given absence of any modeled failure.