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Home » Articles » on Tools & Techniques » Inside FMEA » Quality Objective 4: Lessons Learned

by Carl S. Carlson Leave a Comment

Quality Objective 4: Lessons Learned

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.”

What are Lessons Learned?

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.

Why are Lessons Learned Important in FMEA?

It is essential that the FMEA team does not miss any important failure modes. If the FMEA is disconnected from field lessons learned, this is a problem, and must be remedied. The only exception is if the FMEA is being performed on an entirely new product, with entirely new technology. In most cases, there are important field data that should be brought into the analysis. The key is to hold the FMEA team responsible to ensure that major field problems are not repeated.

How can field lessons learned be brought into an FMEA?

For Design FMEAs, the best way is to research past field and customer data to identify failures for similar systems and configurations. This can be warranty data, customer service records, or other data that documents past failures. For Process FMEAs, you can research manufacturing or assembly plant records to identify past failures during production for similar processes. The concept here is that if a failure has happened in the past, it can happen again, unless the design or manufacturing process being analyzed prevents or mitigates the same failure.

What is the Quality Objective related to Lessons Learned?

FMEA Quality Objective 4: Lessons Learned

“The FMEA considers all major “lessons learned” (such as high warranty or field failures, for Design FMEAs, or manufacturing history for Process FMEAs) as input to failure mode identification.”

How can you assess how well a FMEA meets the Quality Objective for Lessons Learned?

There are three simple steps to assess this quality objective.

  1. Ask for records for past failures for similar products or processes. Randomly select a representative set of field failures.
  2. Ask the FMEA team to show you where in the FMEA the past problems are documented. It is usually in the Failure Mode column. Be sure you can see the past failure mode(s) in the FMEA.
  3. Verify that the FMEA addresses the potential past failure modes, so that there is no repeat of serious failures.

What is an example of assessing Lessons Learned in an FMEA?

QualityObective4

Tip

Some FMEA teams add an optional column to the FMEA, where they can identify Failure Modes that were input from past field data. They enter the word “seen” in this column for each potential Failure Mode that came from field data, so there can be visible follow-up to ensure no repeats.

Summary

An important role of an FMEA is to be certain that no serious field failures from past products are repeated on the new product program. This article shows how the corresponding quality objective can be evaluated.

Filed Under: Articles, Inside FMEA, on Tools & Techniques Tagged With: FMEA Quality Objectives

About Carl S. Carlson

Carl S. Carlson is a consultant and instructor in the areas of FMEA, reliability program planning and other reliability engineering disciplines, supporting over one hundred clients from a wide cross-section of industries. He has 35 years of experience in reliability testing, engineering, and management positions, including senior consultant with ReliaSoft Corporation, and senior manager for the Advanced Reliability Group at General Motors.

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Articles by Carl Carlson
in the Inside FMEA series

Logo Info

Information about FMEA Icon

Inside FMEA can be visually represented by a large tree, with roots, a solid trunk, branches, and leaves.

- The roots of the tree represent the philosophy and guiding principles for effective FMEAs.
- The solid trunk of the tree represents the fundamentals for all FMEAs.
- The branches represent the various FMEA applications.
- The leaves represent the valuable outcomes of FMEAs.
- This is intended to convey that each of the various FMEA applications have the same fundamentals and philosophical roots.

 

For example, the roots of the tree can represent following philosophy and guiding principles for effective FMEAs, such as:

1. Correct procedure         2. Lessons learned
3. Trained team                 4. Focus on prevention
5. Integrated with DFR    6. Skilled facilitation
7. Management support

The tree trunk represents the fundamentals of FMEA. All types of FMEA share common fundamentals, and these are essential to successful FMEA applications.

The tree branches can include the different types of FMEAs, including:

1. System FMEA         2. Design FMEA
3. Process FMEA        4. DRBFM
5. Hazard Analysis     6. RCM or Maintenance FMEA
7. Software FMEA      8. Other types of FMEA

The leaves of the tree branches represent individual FMEA projects, with a wide variety of FMEA scopes and results.

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