Using SAE Resources in FMEA in an Aeronautical Engineering Technology Junior-Level Logistics Course

SAE standards are widely used in the aerospace industry. The use of standards in classroom settings introduces students to industry standards that reinforce the importance of standards and lifelong learning. Undergraduate students gain experience in system cost and risk improvement in a design support analysis course. A semester-long project forces the students to evaluate a design for impacts to cost and safety. Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is one tool used in the aerospace industry to identify risks in products or processes and to act to mitigate or eliminate the risks. Using the SAE ARP5580 standard and SAE's Reliability Program Handbook TAHB009A for FMEA, students use a structured method to analyze and identify potential failure modes while evaluating an aerospace design. While there are many inclusions of product redesign in papers discussing capstone design courses, this paper focuses on the use of FMEA in a Design Support Analysis course in an Aeronautical Engineering Technology program at a junior level. The course includes lectures, videos, quizzes, and the final project. The goal of the final project is to dramatically reduce life cycle costs through maintenance reductions, a priori failure identification and analysis, and subsequent reliability and maintainability improvements. This paper introduces the FMEA process as described in SAE ARP5580, presents the FMEA method as completed in the course, and discusses FMEA changes that could be incorporated to improvements to the course.