The Quality Blog

I have not written in awhile but wanted to write about the matrix approach to process FMEA. I have proven at several customers that over 80% of all PFMEA activity has negative value. This assumes of course that the user has done FMEA’s on their processes in the past.

Efficiency can be improved by over 70 % by corelating causal items with verbs for assembly. For example: Fasten, or Secure can have as many as 30 plus causes of failure, but they are usually consistant. That means that each time I fasten or secure, the reasons why I might fail to do it properly are known and used over and over again. Based on this the FMEA practioner may only choose to use causes that make sense for the specific application and not re- brainstorm (is that a word)  all of them (recording them on the form). This has no value as a team sees that the causes repeat many times even though probability (occurrence) is low. By doing the corelation and preparing the fmea FROM THE KNOWNS  the team can quickly focus on the new, changed, past failures and environments.

QAI will be hosting a multiple speaker panel discussion on Supply Chain Management at the Quality Expo in Chicago Sept 22… Join us!

Are FMEA’s actually proprietary. I have been hearing this over and over again far too many times. The purpose of the FMEA is to collaborate on risks, not hide behind the proprietary statement. It is common if you do not want someone to see what is on the FMEA, that we call it proprietary. I would ask a simple question, is it really or are you bad at creating them. I think it is an excuse not to show how poor they are performed….

Supply Chain Management has 5 distinct activities, Planning, Engage, Collaborate, Develop, Validate