PFMEA severity score different applications

GRP

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#11
Here's the way that it should work: The customer does the DFMEA and the results are incorporated in the design output--drawings and specifications, mainly. Thus if the supplier satisfies the specifications given to them, the design requirements will be met. The PFMEA should address the supplier's process(es) and not the customer's. It's the responsibility of the customer to ensure that they adequately communicate their requirements. When developing Risk Priority Numbers (RPNs) for the manufacturing process, the supplier should take into account only the potential failures of their own processes, and the concomitant risks to their own business, not the customer's.

Over the years I've seen many situations where a supplier met all of the specifications, but somehow or another the product didn't work as intended. The operation was a success but the patient died. This is solely the responsibility of the design authority. This is not to say that a supplier shouldn't bring to light things that the customer might have missed.
Agreed that the supplier develops the analysis for its own processes. Yet the effects of the failure modes and their severity should look -at least per SAE and other guidelines- beyond the plant and into the areas stated above. Hence RPN's are not bound to the process only, but also to the context given by the project. As described, if the client was thorough this should be covered by drawings/specs, and dfmea if made available.

The customer is ultimately responsible for communicating their requirements adequately. But as much as possible I'd advocate for people bringing things to light rather than falling in the recurrent "they didn't say, so we don't ask".

I also understand that manufacturers in the automotive supply chain are bound by IATF to know and ensure their products comply with applicable laws ad regulations. Clients often include disclaimers in their specifications about them not being necessarily complete, and transfer responsibility to the supplier. True or false?
 
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Jim Wynne

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#12
The customer is ultimately responsible for communicating their requirements adequately. But as much as possible I'd advocate for people bringing things to light rather than falling in the recurrent "they didn't say, so we don't ask".

I also understand that manufacturers in the automotive supply chain are bound by IATF to know and ensure their products comply with applicable laws ad regulations. Clients often include disclaimers in their specifications about them not being necessarily complete, and transfer responsibility to the supplier. True or false?
There's nothing in what I wrote to indicate that I think that suppliers shouldn't bring things to light--in fact, I wrote the exact opposite. Suppliers should inform customers of things that might not be right in the specifications. As far as contractual disclaimers are concerned, just because a customer attempts to shift responsibility inappropriately doesn't mean that such a thing will be in any way enforceable. Suppliers can't be held to account for things they don't know or do know and fail to disclose unless it can be shown that the supplier deliberately withheld information or withheld information that the common supplier should know.

In a transaction with a major automotive OEM while I was working in an injection molding job shop, our engineer contacted the customer's design engineer with a suggestion for a different grade of resin for a part (an interior trim component) that we were working on. We were told, in essence, to mind our own business. "We're the experts," said the customer. To make a long and ugly story short, the part failed due to being unable to withstand common sunlight exposure, and it failed on a fairly massive scale. We had used the prescribed material and successfully completed all of the required testing in our own lab. The customer spent a lot of time (theirs and ours) trying to find a way to blame it on us, without success. You might understand how a supplier might be loathe to make helpful suggestions after such a debacle.
 
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