Originated by the United States Department of Defense (MIL-P-1629, 1949), now set by the AIAG and VDA FMEA Handbook, and set out for practitioners by Robin E. McDermott, Raymond J. Mikulak, and Michael R. Beauregard (The Basics of FMEA, 1996).
Lists the ways each part or step can fail, scores each failure for severity, likelihood, and detectability, and ranks the fixes by the combined score.
When to reach for it
When designing or auditing a product or process where a missed failure would be costly or dangerous.
How it runs
- Gather a cross-functional team.
- Break the system into components or steps.
- List the failure modes and effects of each.
- Score severity, occurrence, and detection; multiply into a risk number.
- Fix the highest scores first, then rescore.
Where it sits in SOLVE eX
Go to the source
- MIL-P-1629, Procedures for Performing a Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis, 1949
- The Basics of FMEA, Quality Resources, 1996