Regardless of your industry or the size of your company, every business aims to offer good products and improve the overall performance of the organization.
However, the processes necessary to achieve this can often fail and may not align with the initial objectives. For this reason, there is a tool that can help identify these errors and propose improvement ideas.
This tool is FMEA, a method widely used by companies of various types and sizes worldwide. In this article, we have gathered the essential information you need to become familiar with this tool and implement it in your organization. Let’s dive in!
What is FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis)?
FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) is a method used for failure prevention and risk analysis. Its primary objective is to avoid potential failures and, through risk analysis, propose improvement actions.
Its basic approach is to detect possible errors before they materialize in the product or service. By using the FMEA method, the chances of process failure are reduced, thereby increasing the reliability of both the process and the products or services offered.
It’s important to always remember that reliability is crucial to your customers. This bond is what brings consumers back and encourages them to recommend your services to others. Ultimately, this is what guarantees more positive results and sustainability for the company.
Categories of the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Method
Through this tool, the severity of potential failures is also evaluated. By classifying them, it becomes possible to identify the importance levels of risks and failures, helping the organization deal with such issues. Overall, this process can be divided into three elements:
- Cause: Indicates the reason the failure occurred.
- Effect: Indicates the consequences of the failure.
- Detection: Specifies the process control that can be used to prevent the failure.
Thus, FMEA can systematically detect, indicate, and outline nonconformities that may occur, helping to find ways to reduce or eliminate the chances of these failures actually happening. In this way, the tool is essential for ensuring safety and efficiency.
There can be various types of FMEA, such as product, design, system, safety, and process FMEA. However, their application approach remains essentially the same, though with different purposes.
One of the most frequently used types is Process FMEA (PFMEA). PFMEA is focused on identifying failures that may occur during process execution.
In PFMEA, the goal is to find failures that could affect quality and customer satisfaction, as well as to anticipate safety risks. These failures can stem from inadequate machinery or materials, among other causes, making this method more comprehensive and complete.
How to apply the FMEA tool?
Although FMEA is a highly versatile tool, its implementation is somewhat complex and requires many steps. Therefore, we will define the eight essential steps for applying the FMEA method in organizations. Let’s briefly review each one:
- Definition: The first step is to define the product or service to be analyzed.
- Specification: Gather all the information and specifications possible about the product or process being analyzed.
Failure modes: Assemble a team responsible for implementing FMEA and identifying all nonconformities and potential failures that may occur. - Effects: For each failure, the team will classify the impact level that the situation may have on the company and/or its stakeholders.
- Causes of failure: In this stage, the causes of the failure will be discussed, and ideas for corrective actions will be raised. As a helpful tool, other quality methods like the “5 Whys” can facilitate this process.
- Proposals: In this step, possible actions to improve or control failures will be discussed. Brainstorming can be very useful here for generating ideas.
- Action Plan: After identifying the actions, it’s time to implement the action plan and document the entire process. All items, such as steps, deadlines, and the people responsible for each area, should be clearly defined to ensure the successful execution of the proposed improvements.
It is important to note that the proper implementation of this method can impact all departments of the company and requires time and commitment from those involved.
Additionally, everything depends on the complexity of the process (product, service, project, etc.) being analyzed, but when well-executed, FMEA can drastically reduce the chances of failures occurring. This leads to highly positive results for the organization!
What is the importance of FMEA for organizations?
As a preventive measure, FMEA places even more focus on quality and customer satisfaction, bringing benefits such as better product quality, cost savings from fewer errors or failures, increased reliability, and the ability to identify the root cause of problems before they happen.
If failures have already occurred, it’s essential to understand why they happened and how to prevent them. FMEA offers a detailed analysis of possible failures and provides a more efficient way to identify and eliminate them.
