Patent ID: 7823015

Claim:
A method for determining a full error description for at least one part of a technical system, by a computer, comprising: describing the system by a stored system description which can be processed by the computer, the system description containing information on elements available in the system and on links between the elements; determining an element error description for each element on which information is contained in the system description, the element error description being determined using a stored error description which is respectively associated with a reference element, describing possible errors of the reference element with the element error description, and describing possible errors of a respective element with an error description of the reference element; grouping at least a portion of the reference elements into a reference element group based on the stored system description; determining a group error description for the elements of the reference element group using one of a plurality of stored group error descriptions, each of which is respectively associated with a specific reference element group, each stored group error description describing possible errors of the elements of the respective reference element group, the group error description specifying at least one error which has an effect on all elements of the reference group and specifying how the error affects the elements of the reference element group by taking into account the links between the elements from the stored system description; and determining a full error description from the element error descriptions and the group error descriptions taking into account the links between the elements, where the full error description is determined as a full error tree, and where the full error tree is changed by varying a framework condition.