FMEA is the Core Tool auditors most often find filled in but not used. It sits in the file, complete, RPN numbers dutifully calculated, and it has changed nothing about the product or the process. Done properly it is the opposite: it is where a team decides what could go wrong and acts before it does.
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis is a systematic method for identifying how a product or process could fail, judging how serious and how likely each failure is, and reducing the risk before it reaches a customer. It is a prevention tool. Its entire value is in the actions it drives, not the document it produces.
There are two main types, and they are developed at different points in Advanced Product Quality Planning. The Design FMEA (DFMEA) examines how the product itself could fail, and is used during product design. The Process FMEA (PFMEA) examines how the manufacturing process could fail to make a good part, and is used during process design. The DFMEA informs the PFMEA, and the PFMEA feeds directly into the control plan. A newer type, FMEA-MSR, covers monitoring and system response for failures that occur in customer operation.
In 2019 the previously separate American (AIAG) and German (VDA) methods were harmonised into a single AIAG-VDA approach, and the change matters. FMEA is now framed as a seven-step process: planning and preparation, structure analysis, function analysis, failure analysis, risk analysis, optimisation, and results documentation. The point of the restructure was to move teams away from treating FMEA as a spreadsheet to fill and towards a structured analysis, with the first three steps forcing a proper understanding of the system before anyone rates a risk.
The old method multiplied Severity, Occurrence and Detection, each rated one to ten, into a Risk Priority Number, then teams acted on anything above a threshold. The predictable result was teams engineering numbers to sit just under the threshold. AIAG-VDA replaced the RPN with Action Priority (AP): High, Medium or Low, assigned from the combination of Severity, Occurrence and Detection rather than their product. A high-severity failure can no longer be diluted by a low occurrence score into looking safe. If you have moved to AIAG-VDA and are still ranking by RPN, you have kept the form and lost the reform.
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. It is a structured method for finding how a product or process could fail, ranking the risk, and acting to reduce it before failures reach the customer.
A Design FMEA analyses how the product could fail and is done during design. A Process FMEA analyses how the manufacturing process could fail to produce a good part and is done during process design. The DFMEA feeds the PFMEA.
Action Priority. Instead of multiplying Severity, Occurrence and Detection into a single number, AIAG-VDA assigns a High, Medium or Low priority based on the combination, which stops high-severity risks from being masked by a low occurrence score.
FMEA is a seven-step method, two main types and a scoring model that most teams learned the old way and half-relearned the new way. That is precisely the kind of topic where a written procedure fails and short, accurate video works, because a team can watch the step they are actually on. The IATF 16949 channel REAS built and runs for the International Automotive Oversight Bureau does this across the standard, grown to 12,000+ subscribers on a BSI ISO 9001 certified production process (FS 763439).
Read the five Core Tools explained and what IATF 16949 is. See how REAS approaches video production for standards and certification bodies, or book a strategy call.
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