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Root Cause Analysis training by Sologic provides the tools, skills, and knowledge necessary to solve complex problems in any sector, within any discipline, and of any scale.
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How does FMEA work?
 
Of all the various problem-solving techniques FMEA may be the most technical.  At its heart, the FMEA process is a structured approach to risk, used to reveal and understand potential failures.
 
It is important to understand what is meant by the 4 key parts of the FMEA title:
 
Failure – In simple terms, an undesired outcome.
Mode – The failure ‘modes’ are the myriad of ways in which the failure can take place.
Effects – These are the wastes, costs, quality defects and harm which could be created.
Analysis – This tells us that the method is structured, objective and evidence based.
 
Usually template or drop-down driven, an FMEA practitioner will take a forensic look at materials, component design, assemblies, subsystems and more, usually with the express aim to generate a potential failure rate from a pre-established equation.
 
When to use FMEA
 
Like many structured problem-solving processes within the wider Root Cause Analysis (RCA) world, FMEA was developed in the 1950s and 1960s by reliability engineers and has evolved steadily ever since.  Today there are a number of general and propriety types (Process FMEA, System FMEA, Design FMEA) used across different industries by different disciplines.  Indeed, with a heritage firmly in product development, today FMEA is just as often used for improving the design of wider business processes and systems.
 
Whereas RCA is about ‘What did…’, FMEA is about ‘What could…’.
 
It is thought that a fully integrated and effective FMEA process could make the need for retrospective RCA redundant but in practice this is no more than wishful thinking.  However, a well-managed combination of FMEA and RCA should lead to an organisation being more proactive and preventative in its problem solving and spending far less time ‘fire-fighting’ in the field and more time ‘value-adding’ at the planning stage.
 
 
The 10 FMEA Steps
 
FMEA Step 1: Review the process/design/system
FMEA Step 2: Brainstorm potential failure modes
FMEA Step 3: Brainstorm effects of these failure modes
FMEA Step 4: Evaluate and assign the severity ranking for each potential failure
FMEA Step 5: Assign a frequency ranking for each
FMEA Step 6: Assign a detection ranking for each
FMEA Step 7: Calculate a Risk Priority Number by calculating Steps 4,5 and 6
FMEA Step 8: Create a prioritised action plan
FMEA Step 9: Take action to eliminate or reduce the priority modes
FMEA Step 10: Re-calculate the resulting RPN as the modes are addressed
 
 
The benefits of FMEA
 
Major benefits derived from a properly implemented FMEA effort are as follows:
 
  • A great way to capture and record the knowledge of the team
 
  • It provides a structured, universally followed and documented method for selecting a design or making decisions, leading to a higher probability of success
 
  • It helps to identify and prioritise critical to quality elements
 
  • The provision of the earliest identification of single failure points (SFP’s) therefore reducing project time and cost.
 
  • It helps to document and share historical records and establish baseline quality
 
  • It instils confidence and builds relationships with clients
 
 
The limitations of FMEA
 
Like all structured methods there are a number of possible limitations or drawbacks that need to be understood and addressed:
 
 
  • There can easily be a bias towards severity/failure ratings which draw the critical thinking away from other possible risks
 
  • Any FMEA program is only as strong as the team members involved and the templates that they work from
 
  • An over reliance on data and other qualitative metrics can reduce, not improve critical thinking.  FMEA by form-filling is ineffective
 
  • It is often not clear where to stop.  The list of potential failures is almost limitless, and resources orientated towards documentation may be better re-pointed at actual error-proofing
 
  • It is not uncommon for scope creep to manifest in FMEA programs; where teams run FMEA on areas of a project or business where the return on investment is marginal at best. In other words, too much time predicting coffee spills rather than oil spills
 
  • Teams can become over-reliant on FMEA in place of wider project and problem-management tools. FMEA supports these, it does not replace them.
 
 
In conclusion FMEA, like similar structured processes (Fishbone, RCA, 5 Whys) can be very effective in making positive change to an organisation.  The big challenge (as ever) is to create, implement and ultimately manage a program that stays aligned to the firm’s key objectives and longer-term goals.  Completion of FMEA must not be allowed to become a goal in itself, rather it should be there to improve and support areas of quality, reliability, safety and profitability.  It is the important decisions from leadership and management that always make or break this.
 
 
 
 
 
 

RCA TRAINING

Root Cause Analysis training by Sologic provides the tools, skills, and knowledge necessary to solve complex problems in any sector, within any discipline, and of any scale.
Learn More
 

SOFTWARE

Sologic’s Causelink has the right software product for you and your organization. Single users may choose to install the software locally or utilize the cloud.  Our flagship Enterprise-scale software is delivered On Premise or as SaaS in the cloud.
Learn More