C
ChrisK
FMEAs: what are the best practices?
We all know FMEA has the potential to be the “front-and-centre” tool for process design: in principle, enabling a cross-functional team to truly analyse and design their process for the preclusion of failure. (My context is within the QS-Big 3 – automotive part manufacturing)
My frustration in real practice has to do with making the FMEA a truly living, alive (excuse redundancy) and central document in the full life-cycle from part and process design through the life of the part.
Unfortunately, the noble aspirations inherent in the writing of FMEAs are often not achieved (do any of these problems sound familiar):
(a) The cross-functional team can’t seem to get together for regular meetings to write good FMEAs.
(b) Although everyone knows FMEAs should be updated after something goes wrong (customer rejection, etc.) No one gets around to updating and revising FMEAs on a regular basis,
(c) The FMEA starts getting thought of as “just another nuisance” document: Sometimes only one individual in the organisation ends up quickly writing it, sometimes after the process has been designed, or worse, they cut and paste from a similar part FMEA in order to have it ready for PPAP and QS audits.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone with success stories in overcoming some of the problems above and/or have implemented a simple, living approach to getting the most out of this powerful tool.
In the meantime, I will mine the wisdom found in this forum for some helpful insights.
All comments welcome. Thanks
We all know FMEA has the potential to be the “front-and-centre” tool for process design: in principle, enabling a cross-functional team to truly analyse and design their process for the preclusion of failure. (My context is within the QS-Big 3 – automotive part manufacturing)
My frustration in real practice has to do with making the FMEA a truly living, alive (excuse redundancy) and central document in the full life-cycle from part and process design through the life of the part.
Unfortunately, the noble aspirations inherent in the writing of FMEAs are often not achieved (do any of these problems sound familiar):
(a) The cross-functional team can’t seem to get together for regular meetings to write good FMEAs.
(b) Although everyone knows FMEAs should be updated after something goes wrong (customer rejection, etc.) No one gets around to updating and revising FMEAs on a regular basis,
(c) The FMEA starts getting thought of as “just another nuisance” document: Sometimes only one individual in the organisation ends up quickly writing it, sometimes after the process has been designed, or worse, they cut and paste from a similar part FMEA in order to have it ready for PPAP and QS audits.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone with success stories in overcoming some of the problems above and/or have implemented a simple, living approach to getting the most out of this powerful tool.
In the meantime, I will mine the wisdom found in this forum for some helpful insights.
All comments welcome. Thanks