Advantages and Disadvantages (costs) of Process FMEA

Hello All,
I’m a new member of Esmar forum, so I’ll start my first thread form a short introduction. I work as a Process Engineer in one of the automotive parts supplier (switches).

Looking through your experience in creating, maintaining and updating PFMEA’s. What's your view of Advantages and Disadvantages (cost) of performing the mentioned analysis?

Hipolit said:

Hello All,
I’m a new member of Esmar forum, so I’ll start my first thread form a short introduction. I work as a Process Engineer in one of the automotive parts supplier (switches).

Looking through your experience in creating, maintaining and updating PFMEA’s. What's your view of Advantages and Disadvantages (cost) of performing the mentioned analysis?

Click to expand...

Can someone help our new Member?

Has anyone performed an FMEA cost-benefit analysis?

Thank you!

Stijloor.

Hipolit said:

Hello All,
I’m a new member of Esmar forum, so I’ll start my first thread form a short introduction. I work as a Process Engineer in one of the automotive parts supplier (switches).

Looking through your experience in creating, maintaining and updating PFMEA’s. What's your view of Advantages and Disadvantages (cost) of performing the mentioned analysis?

Click to expand...

I assume you're referring to PFMEA documents, which are the output of the PFMEA process. Some form of risk analysis is almost always a good thing, and is often done without thinking it about it as FMEA.

The value of the document is roughly proportionate to the conscientiousness of the process. It can serve to help avoid pitfalls both in the present process and similar processes in the future, which is where updating is important. If the process and the document are viewed as nothing more than annoyances, little good will come from them outside of filling space in a PPAP submission.

What's your view of the advantages and disadvantages?

In my experience, here in Detroit, the costs were pretty easy to determine - if your PFMEA failed. If your product caused a line stop in a 'class A' assembly plant (making cars etc) the supplier was backcharged $60,000/hour!

This is simply because the vehicle needed to get to the 'pay point' on the production line, at which point the OEM gets paid - by the dealer and many other (potential) revenue streams (financing etc) which cannot be realized if they can't ship it. Further, there's the cost of sorting a repairing the day's build etc.

Ultimately, of course, the cost of not doing a PFMEA (correctly) and getting caught, could be loss of business and, eventually your job...

I've not seen any research in this area. Perhaps some literature on cost of quality (comparing prevention costs to failure costs) would help.

However, a good way to test it out is to do an FMEA and see what changes to the product or process (depending on whether you're talking about dFMEA or pFMEA) result. Then estimate the potential cost had the failure occurred at the original rate vs. the adjusted RPN rate, and compare this to the cost of doing the FMEA.

AndyN said:

In my experience, here in Detroit, the costs were pretty easy to determine - if your PFMEA failed. If your product caused a line stop in a 'class A' assembly plant (making cars etc) the supplier was backcharged $60,000/hour!

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Process failure doesn't necessarily mean that a PFMEA failed.

Jim Wynne said:

Process failure doesn't necessarily mean that a PFMEA failed.

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Yup, true, as ever Jim. However since the de facto method of producing them is to cut and paste without much thought, it's increasingly likely that the PFMEA was part of the reason the process did fail...(since it wasn't done effectively..)

I remember sitting in on a FMEA software demo (forget what product) years ago where the sales guy went on and on about how fast it was, how easy to cut and paste, and you could create 50 page FMEA in 10 minutes..... The fact that a market exists for that product tells me there are many that are just doing the FMEA for filler in a PPAP as Jim states.

It can be a great tool to identify risks and prevent problems, if you use it right. I can't say I've seen many places that do that though. I think if I created a PFMEA for making spaghetti sauce and included it with my stamping PPAPs, 9 out of 10 would get accepted.

tomvehoski said:

I think if I created a PFMEA for making spaghetti sauce and included it with my stamping PPAPs, 9 out of 10 would get accepted.

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And the tenth would be rejected for having the severity rating too low on adding garlic.

Thanks for answering, I’ was curios to know your opinion. I’m in PFMEA business for three years and since about a year or so I’m performing internal trainings for plant staff.
I’m looking for ways to interest people in FMEA and encourage them to participate in analyze sessions.
As one of you mentioned FMEA is a tool and its effectiveness depends on how you use it.
I’ have a saying that FMEA is like a hammer, using it you can hit the nail or your finger.

Those are the points from my PFMEA Training
Let’s start with advantages:
- Elimination of process problems in concept phase
- Helps to determined places of higher risks
- Helps to precise technical specification for workstations construction
- Definition of corrective actions (during sessions)
- Data inputs to Process Control Plan
- Creation of platform for exchanging information (increase of process/product awareness inside core team)
- Date inputs for base good practice
- Gathering historical date about process changes ect.
- Not only for technical purposes
Disadvantages:
- Time needed for performing PFMEA session (multiplied by core team members)
- Preparing of meeting room, helping devices ect.
- Supervision (update, maintaining) of documentation
- Implementation of PFMEA software
- Training of PFMEA moderator.

If someone has any other idea/points to add, do not hesitate