A structured approach for synchronising the applications of failure mode and effects analysis

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a systematic approach for evaluating the potential failure modes in a system, and is mainly employed in three distinct tasks labelled: (1) Functional FMEA – evaluating those failures associated with product functional definition, (2) Design FMEA – analysing those failures associated with design definition and (3) Process FMEA – assessing potential failures in manufacturing and assembly processes. The literature review has shown limited works on the field of synchronising these different tasks into a working model. To address this gap, this research developed a framework for integrating these tasks of FMEAs, and then qualitatively validating the proposed framework. This research adopted a semi-structured questionnaire to collect experts’ feedback and validate the proposed framework. The t-test was then employed to evaluate the collected feedback. The findings highlight that the proposed framework is applicable and could facilitate the synchronisation of the different tasks of FMEA. This research presents a methodological approach for executing and synchronising FMEAs. Therefore, the proposed framework is practically relevant as an aid for the practitioners in catching the cascading failures and reducing the relevant impact.