Some practitioners use a cause-and-effect (C&E) matrix as a substitute
for the
FMEA
in the early development of the project and use the
FMEA
only as a control tool.
The
FMEA
answers the following questions.
- What are the potential failure
modes of a process or process step?
- What is the potential effect
of a failure mode on the process output and what is the severity?
- What are the potential causes
of a failure mode and how often do they occur?
- How well can a cause be
detected before it creates a failure mode and effect?
- What is the risk
prioritization number, or RPN, for each input.
- Which inputs have high or low
RPNs?
How-to
- For each process step/input,
identify potential failure modes.
- Evaluate the failure effects
that are associated with each failure mode.
- Identify possible causes for
each failure mode.
- List the current controls
for each failure cause.
- Evaluate the severity of the
effect, the likelihood of occurrence, and the probability of detection.
- Multiply the severity by
occurrence by detection to get a risk priority number.
- You can enter severity and
risk priority number cutoff values to color code table cells.
- Improve any items with a
high risk priority number and record actions taken, then revise the risk
priority number.
- Maintain as a living
document.
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