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.”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “correct” as “most appropriate for a particular situation or activity”
BusinessDictionary.com defines “team” as “a group of people with a full set of complementary skills required to complete a task, job, or project. A team becomes more than just a collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy, thus generating performance greater than the sum of the performance of its individual members.”
Why is FMEA a team activity?
One of the most important steps in preparing for an FMEA is selecting the right team because FMEA is a cross-functional team activity. Doing an FMEA by one person, or with an inadequate or incomplete team, is unacceptable and inevitably results in poor quality.
There are three primary reasons for the necessity to have the correct team when doing an FMEA.
1. People have “blind spots.” A well-defined cross-functional team minimizes the errors inherent with “blind spots.”
2. The FMEA analysis requires subject-matter experts from a variety of disciplines to ensure incorporation of all necessary inputs into the exercise, and that the proper expertise is applied to the design or process being analyzed.
3. One of the indispensable values of an FMEA is the cross talk and synergy between subject-matter experts that occurs during the meetings. Well-defined groups can discover things that individuals often miss.
Who should be on an FMEA team?
The make-up of an FMEA team is specific to the scope of the FMEA for the product or process.
A typical core team for a System or Design FMEA might include representatives from system engineering, design engineering, manufacturing engineering, test engineering, field service, and quality or reliability. Large systems or subsystems may require more than one design representative.
A typical core team for a Process FMEA might include representatives from manufacturing engineering, plant assembly, product engineering, supplier quality, end-of-line test, maintenance, and quality or reliability.
What is the Quality Objective related to FMEA Team?
FMEA Quality Objective 5: TEAM The right people are identified and participate as part of the cross functional FMEA team throughout the analysis and are adequately trained in FMEA methods.
How can you assess how well an FMEA meets the Quality Objective for FMEA Team?
1. Ask the FMEA team leader for a roster of the FMEA team membership, including names and job positions. Request actual records of meeting participation.
2. Based on the type of FMEA being done, determine what would be the correct team composition.
3. Compare the actual vs correct team composition.
4. Determine how well the FMEA team was trained in FMEA methods.
What is an example of assessing FMEA Team
Tip
Depending on the scope of the FMEA project, team size can vary from as small as three or four, for very small and simple projects, to as large as eight, for large complex products. Less than three or four may be too small to ensure adequate cross-functional input, and catch potential blind spots. More than eight may be too large to achieve consensus, and will greatly extend time in meetings.
Summary
One of the most important steps in achieving high quality FMEAs is selecting the right team. FMEA is a cross-functional team activity, and by following the advices in this chapter, you can assess how well the FMEA Team meets this quality objective.
Hi Carl,
Always enjoying your articles and insights.
Designing the right team for a DFMEA is for sure extremely important and will have a huge impact on the final result.
I consider the optimum team size to be 3 – 5 persons to create the best team dynamics and results.
This means that it will often be advantageous to break down the DFMEA into smaller work groups, An example could be
DFMEA group 1: Design for meeting customer requirements
DFMEA group 2: Design for a consistently produceable design (Design for Manufacturing)
By doing this you are also avoiding that highly skilled members are boring their brain of half of the time😊
Hello Sven,
Good comments.
I like to differentiate the functions. In your example, DFMEA group 1 would describe the related product design function(s), so their focus is on potential design deficiencies to ensure customer requirements are met. And DFMEA group 2 would describe the related DfM function(s), so their focus is on potential DfM deficiencies to ensure producible design.
There would be overlap between group 1 and 2, such as the design owner would need to be present in both groups.
Regarding ideal number of team members, as long as you have the right cross functions, so that blind spots can be mitigated, and the team has the right subject matter experts to examine the design from different points of view, it will work.
Carl