Failure Mode and Effects Analysis why it is so real…

Though we plan projects/ improvements/ developments up to perfection, because of the practical nature of the 6Ms (Man, Machine, Material, Method, Measurement, Mother Nature), No matter how much effort goes into making sure something works as intended 100% of the time, things can/ will/ may go wrong. Project team can sit around and wait for something to go wrong, or we can anticipate problems before they happen and reduce the risk of failure – that is what an FMEA is. Same as the HACCP, Environmental Impact Assessments, H&S Risk Assessments, Social Assessments, and Energy Assessment, FMEA identifies and evaluates potential failures and their effects, so it is a proactive tool that guides a team through a series of steps and delivers a comprehensive analysis of potential failures and their corresponding effects. Also in the later stages of the FMEA, these are prioritized based on a Risk Priority (RP) that is a function of the severity of the failure, the likelihood of it occurring and the ability to detect it before it happens.

When an organization starts using FMEAs, they are typically done on existing products or processes. However, they are most powerful when used on new products or processes. They will have their biggest impact by addressing unexpected problems before they occur. Detail orientation and the capacity of the involvers to do imagine possible failures, and risks are the basics of FMEA, which is a team activity; ineffective when done by just one person. The rich input needed for FMEAs depend on the knowledge of multi-disciplinary team, from different scopes, so less details as input will yield uncertain output. Because FMEA is a tool to identify and prioritize the risks associated with potential failures and effects of those failures, team can work to mitigate the most serious risks. As improvements are made, the failures and effects addressed need to be reassessed to make sure the level of risk has been lowered to an acceptable level. Potential failures and their associated effects are usually rated on three scales; Severity, Occurrence and Detection. Accurate rankings on each of these scales relies on the team understanding and being able to relate to these ranking scales. Sometimes this scale can expand as Impact Severity, Possibility of Occurrence, and Detection, Legal Compliances, and also the Quantity of faults may occur. Usually SSGB guys are developing criteria for FEMA, and SSBB do evaluate the suitability and the depth of details. SSYB are involving in documentation parts and data collection usually. Based on the resources sometimes highest qualified SSGB person may do the criteria evaluation.  Organization specific meaningful ranking scales make the FMEA easier and faster to use and the resulting evaluations will be more accurate. Customized ranking scales need to be developed before the first FMEA is conducted. Do an FMEA to satisfy auditors and stick it in the drawer until your next audit and you have just wasted a rich source of information that can make your products and processes more robust. In addition to using the FMEA to identify the most pressing improvement opportunities they should also be revisited when changes have been made to see if new, unacceptably high risks have been introduced. FMEAs can also serve as the basis of a Control Plan. Control Plan provides specific instructions on how each component is to measured and monitored.

So FMEA can benifict your organization by improve product/process reliability and quality, Increase customer satisfaction, Early identification and elimination of potential product/process failure modes, Prioritize product/process deficiencies, Capture engineering/organization knowledge, Emphasizes problem prevention. Try this handy management tool for your organizational developments too.