Required PFMEA Content - Final QC Inspection

Does TS16949 requires ALL production processing steps be included and studied in the PFMEA ?
If our QC final inspection, a) is not part of the fabricating process; b) does not require to be done on every part (ie. inspection only sampling basis; c) does not affect the part's quality, then we can omit it in the PFMEA. Is this saying correct ?

I ask because when we add "QC final inspection" in the PFMEA and concludes that it has no failure mode by putting "N/A", one of our customer raised this question to us: "You can't say "N/A" because you need to put those numbers. (RPN) There is no option of "N/A" in the FMEA manual."

If we does not include QC final inspection in PFMEA, no one make any noise ever. What is the better option ?

A Quick Bump!

Please help a fellow Cover with answering a question!

Thank you very much!!

I am not familiar with the standard (I'm in a different industry) but in general, final QC inspection can be considered part of detection assessment and not a 'process' UNLESS the inspection includes testing that can pose a risk to the parts

Thanks Bev D. I tend to agree with you.
By the mean time, i will dig into FMEA manual to look for any sentence that suggest otherwise.

Btw, i've encounted another question on PFMEA and want to know how others is doing in real world:
Do you put the control values and tol. in PFMEA ?
Do you put the control frequency and sample size in PFMEA ? (beside in control plan)

sinned said:

Do you put the control values and tol. in PFMEA ?
Do you put the control frequency and sample size in PFMEA ? (beside in control plan)

Click to expand...

I wouldn't. there is no need to have the same information in multiple places. It only leads to the probability of error when the drawing or control plan are updated. the 3 documents go together but they hold unique information

sinned said:

Does TS16949 requires ALL production processing steps be included and studied in the PFMEA ?
If our QC final inspection, a) is not part of the fabricating process; b) does not require to be done on every part (ie. inspection only sampling basis; c) does not affect the part's quality, then we can omit it in the PFMEA. Is this saying correct ?

I ask because when we add "QC final inspection" in the PFMEA and concludes that it has no failure mode by putting "N/A", one of our customer raised this question to us: "You can't say "N/A" because you need to put those numbers. (RPN) There is no option of "N/A" in the FMEA manual."

If we does not include QC final inspection in PFMEA, no one make any noise ever. What is the better option ?

Click to expand...

Some possible failures when you have a separate Final Inspection station - NG parts mix-up, part damage during inspection, part packing issues, rust, etc. If your FMEA team does not see any meaning in considering them, just do away with the line indicating "N/A".

I'm no expert, but here's my initial thought when you ask this question, "If the QC Final Inspection has absolutely no effect on the customer, why do you even do the step?"

The implication of this question is that you have a final QC check for a reason.

For instance, at my company we double check labeling and packaging. Would we get customer complaints if we messed up labeling or sent stuff in damaged packaging? Absolutely! Do we occasionally catch something with messed up labeling or damaged packaging? Rarely, but it does happen.

So in my case, I include it in our PFMEA. Under AIAG RPN rules, I call it a Severity 2 (slight inconvenience to our shipping department to re-label/re-package if not caught by QC in-station), Occurrence 2 (happens rarely), Detection 8 (visual) for an RPN of 32.

Thanks Chennaiite.

Today I found a FMEA where Final QC inspection are there, and the only failure mode is "missing inspection".


Hi Grimaskr,

Your asking reminded me of a question that i've thought about long time ago.
Suppose the final inspection does not damage the parts or have any negative effect to the products, putting a good part into inspection station will give you a good part. Putting a bad part into inspection station will still give you a bad part. Therefore, there is no value added to the product after the inspection !? So why need doing it ?
One possible reason i think is that we need to verify our process indirectly by checking the products. A bad part goes into checking will not change to good part, but it does also give you an additional piece of information whether the part meet spec or not.
Also, i was thinking that when you are given two identical products to choose from, one has a label "pass inspection" while the other does not, you probably will opt for the first one. It added a "good feeling" to the customer !