Approvable PFMEA's? Rules and guidelines for making your own PPAP documentation

This might be an odd question, yet I'm not sure what the rules/guidlines are for making your own PPAP documentation.

What I mean is I have recently modified the standard Level 4 forms to suit our company and add functionality for our own needs. For instance I have created a PFMEA that is very similar to the standard Level 4 FMEA I was using for PPAP submittal and company use. I made changes to it by including a drop down list for picking Severity, Occurance and Detection (I have seen many with these) and put "Conditional Formatting" in the RPN field so it changes colors depending on how high the number goes. (I have included a copy/sample..and yes Cockroach Overloards are a potential effect of failure)

I even made formulas and macros that automatically build my entire control plan, fill in the "Upper" and "Lower" specifications based on the criteria of the dimensions specified in the Dimensional Report (including general tolerances). I try to hide these things as best as possible from my customer by "Hiding" sheets and using "white" font colors to hide other information. So my question is if I submit these forms to our customer can they reject them because they do not fall exactly within the standard? I have tried to keep them as identical as I could but still increasing the functionality of them.

The PFMEA.zip file is PFMEA.xlsX that has conditional formatting that will only work with excel 2007+

Re: Approvable PFMEA's?

The latest version of the AIAG FMEA manual (4th edition) emphasises that the format is not important, it's the content. In fact, the manual appendices include at least eight different format examples, none of which is mandatory.

I do notice that your severity, occurrence, and detection rankings don't align with those in the new manual. This may be a problem, as some customers require that you use them.

By the way, could you be more specific about how NASA prevents alien invasions?

Re: Approvable PFMEA's?

howste said:

I do notice that your severity, occurrence, and detection rankings don't align with those in the new manual. This may be a problem, as some customers require that you use them.

By the way, could you be more specific about how NASA prevents alien invasions?

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:mg: I'm really surprised none of my customers have said anything pertaining to the scale being off (time to dust off the manual)

As for the Aliens, if NASA knows they are comming it gives us more time to make tinfoil hats!

Re: Approvable PFMEA's?

Dregun said:

:mg: I'm really surprised none of my customers have said anything pertaining to the scale being off (time to dust off the manual)

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Just because they're customers doesn't necessarily make them competent with their own requirements...

Dregun said:

As for the Aliens, if NASA knows they are coming it gives us more time to make tinfoil hats!

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Sounds like that would be detection (d) then, not prevention (p) as it shows.

Dregun said:

This might be an odd question, yet I'm not sure what the rules/guidlines are for making your own PPAP documentation.

What I mean is I have recently modified the standard Level 4 forms to suit our company and add functionality for our own needs. For instance I have created a PFMEA that is very similar to the standard Level 4 FMEA I was using for PPAP submittal and company use. I made changes to it by including a drop down list for picking Severity, Occurance and Detection (I have seen many with these) and put "Conditional Formatting" in the RPN field so it changes colors depending on how high the number goes. (I have included a copy/sample..and yes Cockroach Overloards are a potential effect of failure)

I even made formulas and macros that automatically build my entire control plan, fill in the "Upper" and "Lower" specifications based on the criteria of the dimensions specified in the Dimensional Report (including general tolerances). I try to hide these things as best as possible from my customer by "Hiding" sheets and using "white" font colors to hide other information. So my question is if I submit these forms to our customer can they reject them because they do not fall exactly within the standard? I have tried to keep them as identical as I could but still increasing the functionality of them.

The PFMEA.zip file is PFMEA.xlsX that has conditional formatting that will only work with excel 2007+

Click to expand...

Be wary of conditional formatting on the RPN's as the latest FMEA guidelines discourage the use of thresholds for decision making.

prototyper said:

Be wary of conditional formatting on the RPN's as the latest FMEA guidelines discourage the use of thresholds for decision making.

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One of our larger customers requires us to keep RPN values below 200 for PPAP approval. Internally we try and keep RPN values at or below 120 as much as possible but as everyone knows sometimes the cost to achieve such goals out weights the benifits. Although we have a "threshold" per say, we do this to drive continuous improvement projects for families of products. Tool life studies for example were done on 70% of the machines on our shop floor; even though only 25% of those would fall within that PFMEA, other PFMEA's had the same RPN values for the same reason.

I had a customer deny a PPAP because they didn't like a format used in the past and since then have stuck to using standard PPAP documentation. Recently however I've been trying to make the "tools" work for our company, not just as a customer requirement. In doing so I've branded all documentation and applied the same style to each form so that it looks cohesive. I've also made huge strides in reducing the amount of redundant work by creating formulas and macros; effectively reducing my PPAP work in half (when you have 350+ dimensions that needs a PFMEA and Control Plan it helps a lot).

We are only (not that it is a bad thing) ISO:9001 certified, however two of our larger customers demand TS requirements from us. Being able to ask questions from those who are more famiar with the industry is going to be a very good tool for me. I've only posted 2 threads and since then verified an acronym used by a customer and from this thread fixed my Sev, Occ, Det scale to reflect AIAG 4th standards.

Thanks for answering my questions.

If you make it clear in your procedures that the conditional formatting is an aid to decision making and that lower RPN's are also considered for improvement, you may avoid the issue being raised during audits.
I understand the trade off with customer specific requirements and the AIAG manual and a caveat in your prrocedure will cover you.