Based on evaluating thousands of FMEAs from hundreds of companies, certain mistakes are repeated over and over. By learning from these mistakes, we can set quality objectives that will assure high quality FMEAs. Directly below are the ten FMEA quality objectives:
1. DESIGN IMPROVEMENTS The FMEA drives product design or process improvements as the primary objective.
2. HIGH-RISK FAILURE MODES The FMEA addresses all high-risk failure modes with effective and executable action plans.
3. DVP/CONTROL PLAN The Design Verification Plan (DVP) or the Process Control Plan (PCP) considers the failure modes from the FMEA.
4. INTERFACES The FMEA scope includes integration and interface failure modes in both block diagram and analysis.
5. LESSONS LEARNED The FMEA considers all major “lessons learned” (such as high warranty, campaigns, etc.) as input to failure mode identification.
6. LEVEL OF DETAIL The FMEA provides the correct level of detail in order to get to root causes and effective actions.
7. TIMING The FMEA is completed during the “window of opportunity” whence it can most effectively influence the product or process design.
8. TEAM The right people are adequately trained in the procedure and participate on the FMEA team throughout the analysis.
9. DOCUMENTATION The FMEA document is completely filled out “by the book”, including “Action Taken” and final risk assessment.
10. TIME USAGE Time spent by the FMEA team is an effective and efficient use of time with a value added result.
