FMEA – Five Yearly Review

The IMCA Marine DP committee promotes the practice of maintaining an up-to-date DP system FMEA/FMECA. Opportunities to benefit from new guidance and lessons learned may be missed if the FMEA/FMECA document is not periodically refreshed.  A neglected DP system FMEA/FMECA may lead to a reduction in robustness, resilience, and single fault tolerance if it is only updated after deficiencies have been identified by a vessel DP Assurance process or after major upgrades are carried out to the vessel’s DP system.

IMO MSC.1/Circ.1580, Guidelines for Vessels and Units with Dynamic Positioning Systems, Chapter 5.1.2 states:

For equipment classes 2 and 3, an FMEA should be carried out.  This is a systematic analysis of the systems to the level of detail required to demonstrate that no single failure will cause a loss of position or heading and should verify worst-case failure design intent.  This analysis should then be confirmed by FMEA proving trials.  The FMEA and FMEA proving trials result should be kept on board and the FMEA should be kept updated so that it remains current.

IMCA M 166, Guidance on Failure Mode Effects Analysis Guidance, Chapter 2.7 Updating of an FMEA states:

The FMEA will become out of date if it is not maintained regularly and systematically, due to changes in operating procedures, modifications to DP hardware and software, to confirm compliance with the latest industry guidance, etc., over the life cycle of the vessel.  If this happens, it is likely that another FMEA revision will be incurred later.  A systematic FMEA review through the vessel’s life cycle should be an ongoing process which should be formally completed at least once every five years.

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