Systems Risk Analysis UsingHierarchical Modeling

A fresh look at the system analysis helped us in finding a new way of calculating the risks associated with the system. The author found that, due to the shortcomings of RPN, more researches needed to be done in this area to use RPNs as a new source of information for system risk analysis. It is the purpose of this article to investigate the fundamental concepts of failure modes and effects analysis to propose a conceptual hierarchically based model for calculating the risk associated with a system in general. To do so, the author developed a chance constrained goal programming model for solving the problem. A sample problem is provided to show the calculation process of risk evaluation. The findings of this article can be used for calculating the level of risk associated with the entire system provided that the RPN of each unit of subsystems is known beforehand. This model helps the managers to calculate the system risk from the perspective of management, because it is a computer aided decision making (CADM) tool