Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
With the Inside FMEA series of articles, my intention is to bring to life the subject of FMEA, and provide value to readers from all levels of experience.
Whether you are new to FMEA, or an FMEA expert, it is my sincere desire that each and every person who reads Inside FMEA articles will discover new insights about FMEA, and experience improved success in FMEA applications.
The first article, called “Welcome to Inside FMEA”, will introduce the series, and provide a glimpse of what is to come.
Readers are encouraged to contact me with any questions about FMEA, or feedback on Inside FMEA articles. Questions, feedback, and ideas for future articles can be sent to carl.carlson@effectivefmeas.com. I will personally respond to all questions and feedback.
I’m excited to bring this new series to Accendo, and hope you enjoy reading the articles, as much as I enjoy writing them. As I say to readers of my book, "best wishes for effective FMEAs."
Carl S. Carlson
The best way to predict the future is to create it. Peter Drucker
One of the most consequential topics facing the FMEA community today is how to effectively use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support FMEA activities. Do it wrong, and the results could be missed opportunities, or potentially catastrophic outcomes. Do it right, and the benefits are immense.
We want to let subscribers know that the recent spate of past Inside FMEA articles that were sent from “Fred at Accendo Reliability” to the full subscriber list were not planned to be sent. Fred let me know that this was inadvertently caused by AccendoReliablity.com website updates that allowed the release of some of the old articles. We are sorry for any inconvenience you experienced from loading your email with older articles. Fred says the problem is resolved, and should not recur.
Of course, you are always welcome to peruse and read any past articles. You can find Inside FMEA past articles by clicking this link, for the most recent articles first, or this link for past articles grouped by category.
Meanwhile, I will resume writing new articles next month, as part of the Inside FMEA series. So, stay tuned.
Carl
Message to “Inside FMEA” readers. This is a reprint of a message that went out earlier this week as part of the Accendo Weekly Update. I wanted to be sure to reach any “Inside FMEA” readers who may have missed the original request.
My new eBook is in draft form and ready for review. I am very excited to introduce this project, as it is the culmination of a career in reliability engineering and FMEA. The title is Achieving Effective FMEAs: Simple Principles for Realizing the Full Potential of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. It summarizes and simplifies articles I’ve written over the years as part of the Inside FMEA Series, with added emphasis on principles, examples, exercises and case studies. Each chapter has a section called “Potential AI Application” which shares where AI is useful, and where human involvement is essential. [Read more…]
Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. Peter Drucker
Achieving high-quality FMEAs requires support from the right FMEA team. Getting the team to show up and participate to the fullest extent is critical to success.
None of us is a smart as all of us. – Ken Blanchard
FMEAs have great potential value to improve product designs and manufacturing processes. That value increases significantly when FMEA is properly linked and connected to other analyses.
1. Design FMEA can be linked to Process FMEA.
“Innovation has a lot to do with timing.” — Steve Jobs
When FMEAs are done is just as important as how they are done. In this article, I’ll share evaluation criteria for the FMEA Quality Objective regarding timing.
FMEAs need to be completed through Recommended Actions, Actions Taken, and risk reduced to an acceptable level by certain dates. Meeting the timing objectives of FMEAs means they were started and completed by the required dates. [Read more…]
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Albert Einstein
There is no more important outcome from an FMEA than identifying and addressing high-risk issues. In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for addressing high-risk failures.
The level of risk in an FMEA is identified in the Risk Priority column. For each failure mode and corresponding effect and cause, the FMEA team designates the level of risk, such as “high” or “medium” or “low.” High-risk failures are those that the FMEA teams assigns the highest level of risk, based on appropriate FMEA standard or company policy.
“Address” means “to deal with, handle, or give attention to a problem, issue, or topic in a deliberate and effective way.”
In an FMEA, each of the high-risk failure modes must be addressed by effective actions that reduce risk to an acceptable level. [Read more…]
“Evaluate what you want – because what gets measured, gets produced.” James A. Belasco
Years ago, many FMEAs did not recommend actions to improve product designs or testing. They identified risk, which is important; but missed opportunities to actually improve product designs and test plans. In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an individual Design FMEA or Process FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for test improvements.
The concept is to take specific action to add new tests and/or revise current tests, in order to address high detection risk. [Read more…]
Progressive improvement beats delayed perfection. Mark Twain
In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an individual Design FMEA or Process FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for design improvements.
An essential part of FMEA procedure is for the FMEA team to recommend and implement actions to reduce risk to an acceptable level. For Design FMEAs, this includes actions to improve the product design. For Process FMEA, this includes actions to improve the design of the manufacturing or assembly process. Of course, there are other types of actions that can be recommended, such as test improvements; but this quality objective is focused on design improvements. [Read more…]
“Always remember, your focus determines your reality” – George Lucas
In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for identifying special characteristics. Special characteristics are often not well understood by FMEA teams, and yet have potential to be highly useful in FMEA applications.
“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing” – Warren Buffett
In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for identifying high-risk failures.
One definition for “risk” is “the possibility of loss or injury;” and “high” means “of a greater degree, amount or cost than expected.” Putting these words together, “high risk” means the anticipated loss or injury is too great. [Read more…]
“Risk analysis is the art of turning uncertainty into actionable insight.” — Anonymous
In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for Technical Risk Analysis.
By definition, “risk analysis” is “the systematic process of identifying, evaluating, and estimating the levels of risk involved in a situation, process, or system, in order to inform decision-making. [Read more…]
Many ideas grow better when they are transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up. Oliver Wendell Holmes
In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for FMEA Team. I’ll include relevant information from the chapter in the FMEA Preparation series called “Assembling the Correct FMEA Team.”
Every failure is a lesson learned about your strategy. Thomas Edison
In this article, I will discuss how to evaluate an FMEA against the FMEA Quality Objective for Lessons Learned.
By definition, a “lesson” means “something learned by study or experience,” and “learn” means “to gain knowledge or understanding of by study, instruction or experience.”
Lessons Learned are specific data from the field (or from manufacturing plant history in the case of Process FMEAs) that documents relevant information about failures, from which knowledge can be gained and used in support of future product programs. [Read more…]
A picture is worth a thousand words. An interface is worth a thousand pictures. Ben Shneiderman
In this article, I will outline how to evaluate an individual Design FMEA (DFMEA) against the FMEA Quality Objective for Interfaces. [Read more…]
