Making the PFMEA user friendly for the production floor personnel

Hopefully someone can help me. My company has been doing FMEA during the die build stage. I have been charged with making the FMEA user friendly for the production floor. Is this a document that should be usable on the floor, or is it more geared for the engineering phase? How do some of you use the FMEA on the floor? I usually take the FMEA that was developed by the team, create the PCP, and then the operator inspection instructions. We have been putting the FMEA in the job manual, but it is never looked at by the operators on the floor.

HELP!

First things first - Welcome to the Cove

We don't put PFMEAs on the floor mainly because it would just be another "piece of paper" for the operators to thumb through (if they would ever actually do that ). Another big reason is from the document control standpoint.

That being said, if your company decides they would actually be of use to your operators, go for it. If you are using a spreadsheet, I would think it would be relatively easy to make it "friendlier" to the operators, but then you have two documents to update each time you make a change. Our culture is more along the lines of a checklist for operators to go through when a Failure Mode is detected (so we have two documents to update also - value added???). Our PFMEA software has the capability of printing those lists. To date we have not used that aspect of our software, opting instead for a "stand alone" checklist or trouble shooting guide (which may or may not "match" the PFMEA), but we're trying to get there.

We don't put the FMEAs on the floor, since no one would reference them. We do put the control plans on the floor, along with process work instructions and specific job work orders.

If you find a way to make a review of the FMEA part of the operator's job -- as in reviewing it to see if a failure mode could be eliminated with a change to process, I would love to hear about it.

Same here, our PFMEAs are not out there on the production floor. I'm aware it's supposed to be a "living document!!!" but it would die a quick death out there, just one more "quality dweeb" document.

Where I was coming from is that upper management feels that the FMEA would be a useful tool on the floor. What I am trying to explain to them is all of the checks on the operation inspection instruction sheets come from the control plan, which in-turn come from the FMEA. My opinion is that they are not very helpful after the fact (die has been built, or transferred). I am making them mandatory at receipt of customer's print. We start them at our die design meeting (not design responsible). How do we address all of the 600 part numbers that have not had FMEA's?

I really appreciate all of your help.

bkreps73 said:

Where I was coming from is that upper management feels that the FMEA would be a useful tool on the floor. .......... My opinion is that they are not very helpful after the fact (die has been built, or transferred).......How do we address all of the 600 part numbers that have not had FMEA's?

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Wow, you have something almost none of us have - support and interest from top management. Enjoy!

Here is an idea. Each time you do a new die build, get a small team of shop floor people together and throw down on one small section of your FMEA. Keep it short and fast but make sure that section is taken to a new level.

Then actually get those same people involved in the improvement part (the often forgotten part of the FMEA).

In my past company, we had each department look at their section of the FMEA (unfortunately very infrequently).

It was amazing what came out of it. Lot's of lessons learned and too many good ideas to implement.

I assume you use a generic or family FMEA for each tool build since you mention 600 parts. Just improve it a little bit each time, imagine if you could keep this up for a few years, each die build gets better based on lessons learned and involvement of the people.

Strike while there is interest and support from management, any tool even FMEA can lead to improvements.

Caster

The closest I've seen to having FMEAs on the floor was a company that posted RPNs at workstations to raise awareness of the importance of certain production operations...

I worked for a metal stamping company that put the control plans and the FMEA's in 3 ring job binders. These binders were set out at work stations as part of the job set up. The FMEA's were put out on the floor becasue they contained the expected reaction instructions when a problem was detected. The FMEA's were kept up to date; they were living documents. When ever we had a defect, the FMEA was updated.

It seemed to work. The biggest issue was getting employees to read and comprehend both the control plan and the FMEA.

I beleive that the intent of a true FMEA is to provide severity, occurrence, detection, and reaction plan info to all not just engineers in the back room.

Regards, Dirk

vanputten said:

It seemed to work. The biggest issue was getting employees to read and comprehend both the control plan and the FMEA.

I beleive that the intent of a true FMEA is to provide severity, occurrence, detection, and reaction plan info to all not just engineers in the back room.

Regards, Dirk

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As far as I can see the reaction plans should be in one place- the control plan.
At the work station the operator should have one document that tell his him what to do , what to check, how to check and what to do if it is no good. This is the CP or any other document based on the CP made more friendly.
To have both the FMEA and the CP at the station is confusing as which document should he use, as a default as there are 2 he will use neither.
The continual participation of all the workers in the FMEA process should ensure the understanding of the thinking and updating the FMEA should in fact update the control plan as the CP is dependent on the FMEA.

howste said:

The closest I've seen to having FMEAs on the floor was a company that posted RPNs at workstations to raise awareness of the importance of certain production operations...

Click to expand...

This seems to be a good idea and on a level with signs for critical characteristics.
Use of this could cause havoc at the management level.. I think I like it.

FMEAS are used to identify and then mitigate risks associated with the product or process. The risks are mitigated by control methods ie, Poka yoke, atribute gauges, variable data gauges, etc. FMEAS are of no use on the floor as they should not identify any major risk that hasn't had some sort of detection built into it. At least that is my understanding.


Murph