FMEA

FMEA is an acronym for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. One of the most commonly used techniques in reliability and quality analysis, FMEAs are an organized, systematic approach for performing failure analysis of a product, system, process, or design. The main goal of a FMEA is to improve product reliability and meet quality objectives.

To perform a FMEA, you break down your system, design, or process into elements. The break down can be as granular as you choose. From that point, you systematically go through each element to determine the possible ways it can potentially fail. For each of those failures, you then analyze the effects of the failure and the likely causes of the failure. You then rank each potential failure mode by evaluating its severity (how critical is it), occurrence (how likely it is to occur), and detection (how likely it would be detected).

Once the failure modes are ranked, you begin the process of determining how to minimize or eliminate those deemed most critical. Alternatively, you may determine how to best detect the issue if it cannot be eliminated or minimized. Typically, analysts then define a plan of recommended actions to take for each failure mode determined to be significant.

FMEAs are qualitative analyses that are generally performed collaboratively with a team of engineers, analysts, designers, and team leaders. The resulting FMEA document is kept up-to-date as the product, system, or process grows and changes over time. FMEAs are best used as living documents, so that product, process, and system improvement occurs continuously.

Relyence FMEA provides a framework for you to manage and perform FMEAs. For a quick start, follow through the Getting Started with Relyence FMEA topic. If you are completely new to Failure Mode and Effects Analyses, check out our Introduction to FMEA. Relyence FMEA Basics provides an overview of the core functions for performing FMEAs with Relyence. When you are comfortable with the basics of Relyence FMEA and want to explore the more advanced capabilities, refer to Relyence FMEA Advanced Features.