The acronym FMEA stands for “Failure Modes and Effects Analysis”. It represents a technique aimed at averting future issues in project processes and eliminating risks that may hamper a solution.
It identifies and evaluates defects which could potentially result in reducing quality of a product. Defects within the methodology are defined as anything that reduces the speed or quality at which a product or service is delivered to customers. FMEA is used to discover and prioritize aspects of the process that demand improvement and also to statistically analyze the success of a preemptive solution. There various types of FMEA are
- System FMEA – Used to analyze complete systems and/or sub-systems during the concept of design stage.
- Design FMEA – Used the analyze a product design before it is released to manufacturing.
- Process FMEA -Used to analyze manufacturing and/or assembly process.
The steps to creating a FMEA are
- List the key process steps in the first column usually from the Cause & Effect Matrix.
- List the potential failure mode for each process step.
- List the effects of this failure mode.
- Rate how severe this effect is with 1 being not severe at all and 10 being extremely severe. Ensure the team understands it.
- Identify the causes of the failure mode/effect and rank it as the effects in the occurrence column but, the name implies the score for how likely this cause will occur.
- Identify the controls in place to detect the issue and rank its effectiveness in the detection column. Here a score of 1 would mean we have excellent controls and 10 would mean no controls or extremely weak controls.
- Multiply the severity, occurrence, and detection numbers and store this value in the RPN (risk priority number) column. This is the key number that will be used to identify where the team should focus first.
- Sort by RPN number and identify most critical issues.
- Assign specific actions with responsible persons.
- Once actions have been completed, re-score the occurrence and detection.