New and Enhanced Features in Version 5
The latest upgrade to Xfmea (5.0.1 or higher) includes the following enhancements to the software's features and functionality:
Support for Oracle and Ability to Access Both Standard and Enterprise Databases
With the release of Version 5, Xfmea has added support for Oracle databases (Oracle 10g/11g). The software now has a single interface that offers the choice to store analysis data in a Standard database (Microsoft Access) or a more robust Enterprise database (SQL Server or Oracle). If you purchase an Xfmea Enterprise license, you will be able to work with both database types.
Also new in Version 5, Standard databases can now support all of the features that are available for Enterprise databases, including the option to manage user accounts with permissions based on access level and/or project, as well as the personalized My Portal window, which provides quick access to the analysis information that is important to each user.
Redesigned Project Window
The Project window has been completely redesigned and updated for Version 5. The new interface provides many enhancements that will make data entry and management easier than ever. Some of the most noticeable improvements include:
- Analysis Panel: In addition to displaying the FMEA information, the panel on the right side of the Project window now displays tabs for any other analysis information that has been defined for the item, including item properties, risk discovery, analysis plan, DVP&R, control plan and/or DRBFM.
- More Configuration Options for Analysis Worksheets: The
interface style functionality is now easier to
manage and provides:
- More user-defined fields, including the ability to create fields for dates, numbers and your own custom drop-down lists.
- More options to define the risk assessment metrics that will be calculated and displayed in the software (e.g. RPN, SxO, SOD, SD, etc.).
- The ability to define a tooltip for any analysis field and store this information with each analysis project so that it is the same for all users.
- The ability to define the order of the columns that will be displayed in the analysis worksheet and store this information with each analysis project so that it is the same for all users.
- Action and Control Descriptions Displayed in the FMEA Hierarchy: The hierarchical tree view of the FMEA information now displays all of the record descriptions, including actions and controls.
- Multi-Select and Drag and Drop: Version 5 makes it easier than ever to move records within the analysis. In addition to standard cut, copy and paste, you now have the option to multi-select records directly within the hierarchical tree views and also drag and drop records to desired locations.
- Paste Special: The new Paste Special command provides additional flexibility when you copy and paste records from an existing analysis. While the options will vary depending on the data that you have copied, this can include the ability to paste an item with or without the associated functions, paste a function with or without the associated failures, etc.
- Improved Spell Checker: The new and improved spell checker functionality now highlights spelling mistakes while you are typing and offers customizable spelling dictionaries for all supported languages.
- Improved Functionality for Find and Replace: In addition to text fields, the Find and Replace tool now works for number and date fields as well. When you select a specific project and property, you also have the ability to find/replace options in configurable drop-down lists.
Change Point Analysis or Preliminary Risk Assessment
The new Risk Discovery tab in the Analysis panel provides a choice of two configurable methods for performing a preliminary analysis that can help you to choose which items should receive more detailed consideration via FMEA (e.g. a change point analysis or preliminary risk assessment).
Create Your Own Custom Templates for Importing from Excel
The new Templates Manager feature allows you to create and manage your own customized Excel templates to fit the exact configurations of your existing data files. We have also added the ability to import system hierarchy and FMEA data together from the same file as well as the option to import data from existing DVP&R, control plan and DRBFM worksheets.
Risk Ranking Logic
The Priority Highlights feature allows you to highlight issues in the interface and report/query output based on specified criteria. In Version 5, the software offers a new, customizable Risk Ranking Logic option that allows you to define both the priority levels and the logic used to assign particular issues to each level. For example, now you can configure the project to mark an issue as "Requires Action" if the RPN is => 200 OR the Severity rating is => 9, and so on.
Increased Flexibility for Queries and Reports
In Xfmea 5, the new Template Manager is integrated with completely redesigned utilities for queries and reports. Your customized query/report templates can be made available to all database users, applied to any data set and incorporated into any print-ready report document.
The new and improved Query Utility window is both a powerful analysis tool (making it easy to find and open specific sections of the analysis) and also a flexible custom reporting tool (allowing you to create and manage saved queries that meet your particular presentation requirements). You can:
- Query by any type of record in any type of analysis. This includes the ability to search system hierarchy items, FMEAs, DVP&Rs, control plans or DRBFMs.
- Specify multiple search criteria using the Boolean operators AND/OR along with drop-down lists to determine the matching requirement (e.g. contains, begins with, is not empty, is greater than, etc.).
- Choose which record properties will be included in the results and customize the column order, column widths and heading labels.
Version 5's Reports window makes it easy to build a report document that includes the predefined report forms, custom report forms and/or custom queries that will be most effective to present your analysis results. Since you can generate these documents directly in Microsoft Word or Excel, it is easy to customize and distribute reports without the need for a specialized report editor or viewer.
New Utility to Query and Import from Existing Analyses or Templates
Xfmea 5 provides two flexible interfaces for finding and importing information from existing analyses or predefined templates. One utility allows you to browse through all of the data in a selected analysis project and choose the items and/or functions that you want to import. A second, new and improved, utility allows you to define up to three search terms with the Boolean operators AND/OR to query and import any type of record (i.e. items, failure modes, recommended actions, etc.). For example, this tool can provide a list of items where the part name contains "Battery" AND the supplier name contains "Acme" OR "XYZ, Inc." Alternatively, it can search for all predefined failure causes where the failure mode contains the word "leak" or "puncture," and so on.
