FMEA / FMECA: The Definitive Guide (2020)

What is FMEA / FMECA? 

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a reliability engineering methodology that has been widely applied in many organisations across various industries. It systematically identifies and analyses the possible failure modes of each equipment and component, ranking and prioritising each failure based on its impact and its probability of occurrence.

Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) takes the FMEA process one step further. It looks at the likelihood and criticality of each failure mode, allowing for a more accurate and robust analysis.

Why Performs FMEAs at the Operation and Maintenance Stage? 

Many of us have simply inherited the asset and maintenance strategies we have. And we have inherited all the defects and reliability problems with it. FMEA / FMECA is not just useful within the design phase of the equipment or process, it also guides the maintenance and reliability team’s most effective efforts.

Benefits of implementing FMEAs at the operation/maintenance stage:

1) Determine the optimum value-added maintenance tasks

Using FMEAs on installed equipment that is already operational can pre-empt or proactively mitigate the failures. By identifying the potential and actual failure modes of the assets, we can then understand the risks and impact associated with the failures.

FMEA is the backbone in developing maintenance strategies, such as Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM), Predictive Maintenance and a carefully planned Preventive Maintenance Plan. By understanding all the failure modes, we can ultimately determine the optimum maintenance strategies or actions to prevent these failures from occurring with a high level of assurance.

2) Improve the long-term reliability and the cost of ownership

FMEA is not a one-off method, it should be maintained throughout the life cycle of the asset. The primary purpose of an equipment maintenance plan is to minimise the impact of unplanned events on safety, asset productivity and the environment. Through a living FMEA program, organisations can reach maintenance plan goals, enhance continuous improvement, reduce the asset life cycle cost and eventually improve and sustain the long-term reliability of the asset.

When to Perform FMEA / FMECA?

Do any of the following statements resonate within your organisation?

• “We have a concerning number of underperforming assets” 
• “We are undergoing a significant change in the operating context or asset component configuration”  
• “We need to refine our maintenance plans”  
• “We need to improve our asset performance, but our budget and schedule is tight” 

If any of these statements sound familiar your business could benefit from conducting an FMEA / FMECA. We can assist you in revitalising your organisation’s approach to understanding the performance of your assets that are causing you to feel the pain.

How to Perform an FMEA Process?

There are 13 steps that you can take to implement an FMEA process. In the blog “The Quick Guide to Perform an FMEA Process“, we created a one-page infographic to show the entire process, which you can utilise for your next FMEA workshop.

Generally, an FMEA process has 3 stages:

Quick links: Click Here to get a simplified FMEA template. 

What factors can determine a successful FMEA / FMECA outcome?

Though FMEA is gaining widespread acceptance and recognition because of its inherent benefits, not every organisation gets uniformly great results. A successful application of FMEA can be determined by many external and internal factors.

For example, the FMEA project will not succeed if the organisation neglects these 4 essential factors:

• the team lacks a sound knowledge of FMEA fundamentals,
• the team fails to make proper preparation for the FMEA procedure,
• the team does not understand and avoid some common mistakes, and/or
• there is no skilled FMEA facilitator to guide and support the team.

Among these 4 factors, the FMEA facilitator is significantly crucial to determine a successful outcome. In order to deliver true value–added to the FMEA process, the facilitator must be trained and experienced in the fundamentals of FMEAs and the skills of facilitation. 

Conducting FMEAs does not really need special software, you can simply use a paper form or an Excel spreadsheet to record your data. However, when a good software tool is used, the FMEA team can build powerful FMEA libraries which helps to reach their maximum performance level.

In HolisticAM, we use ReliaSoft XFMEA to facilitate FMEA team workshops/meetings and data management. This tool is praised for its ease of use while offering highly configurable analysis and reporting capabilities.

XFMEA establishes consistency throughout your organisation’s FMEA process and makes it easy for multiple users to cooperate on the analyses.