InterCIT Ltd. is a leading company in developing software FMEA.

What is FMEA? Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a design, a manufacturing or assembly process, or a product or service.

Every product or process is subject to different types or modes of failure and the potential failures all have consequences or effects. A failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is way to:

Identify the potential failures and the associated relative risks designed into a product or process

Prioritize action plans to reduce those potential failures with the highest relative risk

Track and evaluate the results of the action plans.

The purpose of FMEA is to identify the potential failures and the consequent risks designed into a product or process and take steps to minimize the risk factors and prevent possible damages.

Basic purpose of FMEA: There are many reasons - why companies want to use FMEA. There are companies that use FMEA selectively to sort out a specific problem. There are companies that wish to use FMEA more as a preventive measure to forestall likely failures. Some manufacturing companies use FMEA more as a company policy to constantly monitor and ward off or lessen failure potential.

How can FMEAs help companies improve quality and productivity?

FMEAs can be used in many different ways, but the most common FMEAs are Design-FMEAs (DFMEAs) and Process-FMEAs (PFMEAs). Design-FMEAs should be used throughout the design process - from the preliminary design to when the product goes into production. Design-FMEAs uncover potential failures associated with the product that could cause product malfunctions, shortened product life, and safety hazards to name a few. Process-FMEAs ideally should be conducted prior to starting up a new process, but are conducted on existing processes as well. Process FMEAs uncover potential failures that can impact product quality, reduce process reliability, cause customer dissatisfaction, and create safety hazards.

"Failure modes" means the ways, or modes, in which something might fail. Failures are any errors or defects, especially ones that affect the customer, and can be potential or actual.

"Effects analysis" refers to studying the consequences of those failures.

Failures are prioritized according to how serious their consequences are, how frequently they occur and how easily they can be detected. The purpose of the FMEA is to take actions to eliminate or reduce failures, starting with the highest-priority ones.

Failure modes and effects analysis also documents current knowledge and actions about the risks of failures, for use in continuous improvement. FMEA is used during design to prevent failures. Later it's used for control, before and during ongoing operation of the process. Ideally, FMEA begins during the earliest conceptual stages of design and continues throughout the life of the product or service.

Begun in the 1940s by the U. S. military, FMEA was further developed by the aerospace and automotive industries. Several industries maintain formal FMEA standards.

How does an FMEA work?

Basically, an FMEA is a listing of all potential failures and their corresponding effects of the product or process under investigation. It is not unusual for an FMEA to list 50 to 200 different potential failures. If an FMEA has over 200 potential failures it is a good sign that the product or process under investigation should be broken into subunits, each with its own FMEA. For example, automotive companies don't conduct FMEAs on the entire car, but rather individual components of the car.