The defense industry plays a strategic role in maintaining national security, demanding high standards in system reliability and operational safety. The industry's primary focus on system performance and readiness often overlooks environmental aspects, even though failures in the production or operation of defense equipment can lead to serious ecological impacts, such as hazardous waste, excessive air emissions, and soil or water contamination.

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) has been widely applied to assess technical risks, considering the severity, likelihood, and detectability of failures, and helping determine mitigation priorities. However, previous research indicates that FMEA application in the defense sector is largely limited to technical reliability and safety issues, without systematically addressing environmental risks. This gap indicates that while operational risks have been well studied, the ecological dimensions of failures in defense industry processes have not been adequately integrated into risk analysis frameworks.

With increasing environmental regulations and awareness of sustainability, there is an urgent need to develop an FMEA approach that integrates environmental indicators. By integrating factors such as hazardous waste, emissions, energy consumption, and potential contamination, this expanded FMEA framework is expected to provide more comprehensive risk mitigation priorities. This approach not only maintains system reliability and safety but also supports proactive environmental management.

Therefore, this research aims to develop a sustainability-integrated FMEA framework that can be applied to critical processes in the defense industry, such as ammunition assembly, combat vehicle painting, and explosives storage. The research's contribution lies in addressing the identified research gap by demonstrating how environmental sustainability can be systematically integrated into FMEA, thus aligning operational reliability with ecological responsibility.

This study uses a descriptive quantitative approach with the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) method to identify potential failures in defense equipment production machines, assess technical and environmental impacts, and determine mitigation priorities based on the Risk Priority Number (RPN) (Stamatis, 2003; Kumar et al., 2018). The research objects include mechanical machines, electronics, assembly robots, and environmental support systems such as wastewater treatment plants and energy management systems, with data collected through technical documentation, production reports, interviews with operators and technicians, and literature studies related to FMEA, risk management, and industrial sustainability (ISO 31010, 2019; ISO 14001:2015;

DLHK3 Banda Aceh, 2016; UN Environment, 2020; IPCC, 2021). The research variables included failure modes, causes, operating procedures, machine conditions, waste management, and energy efficiency as independent variables, while technical impact, environmental impact, RPN values, and mitigation effectiveness were dependent variables (Stamatis, 2010; Jovanović & Miljković, 2019; Rahman et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2018).

The FMEA analysis was conducted by identifying components and processes, determining failure modes, assessing S (Severity), O (Likelihood), and D (Detection) scores, calculating RPNs, and prioritizing mitigation actions (Lee et al., 2019; World Bank, 2019; ISO 50001, 2018). Data were analyzed descriptively and visualized through RPN graphs per component. Validity was maintained through triangulation of data sources and expert consultation to ensure RPN scores were realistic and relevant to production practices and environmental sustainability aspects (IEA, 2022).

Figure 2. FMEA Process Flow, source: Author Team, 2025

Based on the FMEA analysis of the production process, the failure mode with the highest RPN was process failure due to human error or non-standard procedures (RPN = 252). This indicates that while the technical and environmental impacts are not individually extreme, the combination of a relatively high probability of occurrence and moderate detection increases the mitigation priority.

Other failure modes that also require serious attention include:

The highest RPN indicates areas that require proactive mitigation measures, both from a technical perspective (maintenance, SOPs, monitoring) and

environmental sustainability (waste management, energy optimization, emission control).

Table 1. FMEA Analysis

Validity Notes:

Based on the FMEA analysis that integrates environmental sustainability aspects into the defense industry production process, the following conclusions can be drawn:

Based on the conclusions above, the following are recommendations that can be implemented:

This study has several limitations. First, the assessment of S, O, and D scores is based partly on literature data and expert consultations, thus subject to subjectivity. Second, this study focuses on the general defense equipment production process and does not cover the entire product life cycle, such as demilitarization or final disposal.

Therefore, future research is recommended to:

Developing a more objective quantitative model for FMEA score assessment using historical machine failure data and direct environmental impact measurement data.

The authors would like to thank the Defense Industry Study Program, Faculty of Defense Technology, Republic of Indonesia Defense University, for their support in conducting this research. We also extend our appreciation to the experts and practitioners in the defense industry who provided valuable insights during the data collection and validation process.