What is FMEA? | Key Terms & Topics

Introduction 

A good number of examples of recalls of products result from the poor designs and processes of products. Such failures fall into the public for debate with the manufacturers looking incapable of offering safe commodities. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) entail a method of allowing organizations to anticipate failure during their stages of design by identifying all possible failures in the process of design or manufacturing (Arabian-Hoseynabadi, 2010). The following paper summarises the key terms and topics used in FMEA. 

Failure Mode 

Failure mode refers to the means or modes rather in which a particular thing may fail. On the other hand, failures refer to errors or defects that befall a client and can either be actual or potential. Priority of failures is given based on their level of seriousness their consequences are and the frequency of their occurrence as well as the ease with which they can be detection (Arabian-Hoseynabadi et al., 2010). The primary function of the FMEA is to act towards eliminating or reducing the failures starting with the high level or priority failures. Failure mode does well to detail the existing knowledge and actions concerning certain risks or failures in order to use in the continuous process of improvement. 

Failure Effects 

Failure mode effects refer to the systematic process or method rather that evaluates a given process with the principal purpose of identifying where and how the process may fail and further assess the impact the various failures may have. It does the above in order to identify key parts of a process that are in dire need of a change (Chiozza et al., 2009). In other words, the failure effects connote what would be the consequences of a found or discovered failure. Teams use the process to evaluate failures and proceed to act towards preventing them from occurring especially those that prove to have serious consequences (Chiozza et al., 2009). Prevention is crucial in comparison to acting out in a reactionary manner and places emphasis on all efforts to prevent the failure from taking place. 

Severity 

According to the Macmillan dictionary, severity entails the seriousness of a particular bad or unpleasant thing. Well, the FMEA looks at severity as a ranking number that relates to the most serious effect in view of a particular mode of failure depending on the creativity from the severity scale. Severity stands as a relative ranking acting in the scope of a particular FMEA determined without the regard of chances of detection or possibility of occurrence (Bahret et al., 2017). The team of FMEA assesses the ranking of severity after identifying the most serious effect of the failure mode. 

The above refers to the severity of the mode of failure effect but not the severity of the failure mode itself. The team agrees on a severity scale and proceed to carefully review the criteria column in making judgement. The severity gets well established if the severity is properly defined and such is done by reviewing the criteria of the severity scale (Bahret et al., 2017). It is imperative to appreciate that the team assess the severity of an end effect at a given system, or the end user for the design FMEAs. However, it is crucial that the team considers the effect of a failure at the manufacturing or level of assembly together with the end user or system itself. 

Conclusion 

FMEA is a key process in the design processes because it helps identify possible failures and thus assist in the prevention of these failures. It checks the modes of failure and possibility of failure occurrence avoiding the tussle of having to deal with a problem once it has already caused damage to the proceedings of some sort. 

References 

Arabian-Hoseynabadi, H., Oraee, H., & Tavner, P. J. (2010). Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) for wind turbines: International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, 32(7), 817-824. 

Bahret, A., Kleyner, A., Meixner, A., Norton, A., Carlson, C., & Jackson, C. et al. (2017). Understanding FMEA Severity. Retrieved from https://accendoreliability.com/understanding-fmea-severity-part-1/ 

Chiozza, M. L., & Ponzetti, C. (2009). FMEA: a model for reducing medical errors. Clinica Chimica Acta, 404(1), 75-78.