There are many high-profile examples of product recalls resulting from poorly designed products and/or processes. These failures are debated in the public arena, with manufacturers, service providers and suppliers depicted as incapable of providing a safe product. Failure Modes, Effects and Criticality Analysis, or FMEA, is a methodology designed to enable organisations to anticipate failures from the design phase by identifying all possible failures in a design or manufacturing process.
Developed in the 1950s, FMEA was one of the first structured methods for improving reliability. Today, it remains a highly effective method for reducing the risk of failure.
What is failure modes, effects and criticality analysis (FMEA)?
FMEA is a structured approach aimed at uncovering the potential failures that may exist in the design of a product or process.
Failure modes are the ways in which a process can fail. Effects are the ways in which these failures can lead to waste, defects or harmful outcomes for the customer. Failure modes and effects analysis is designed to identify, prioritise and limit these failure modes.
FMEA is no substitute for good engineering. Rather, it enhances the quality of engineering by applying the knowledge and experience of a cross-functional team (CFT) to review the design progress of a product or process by assessing its risk of failure.
Why carry out a failure modes, effects and criticality analysis?
Historically, the earlier a failure is discovered, the less it costs. If a failure is discovered late in product development or launch, the impact is exponentially more devastating.
FMEA is one of many tools used to discover failure as early as possible in the design of the product or process. Discovering a failure early in product development using FMEA offers the following benefits:
- Multiple options for mitigating the risk
- Greater capability to verify and validate changes
- Collaboration between product and process design
- Improved design for manufacturing and assembly
- Lower-cost solutions
- Use of legacy knowledge, tribal knowledge and standard work.
Ultimately, this methodology is effective in identifying and correcting process failures at an early stage, in order to avoid the unpleasant consequences of poor performance.
Xavier Schuster
Consultant chez SXE Consulting. Cabinet de conseil industriel base au Luxembourg, 25 ans d'experience en excellence operationnelle.
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