Do you happen to receive complaints from customers, maybe even repeat ones, even though you have implemented P-FMEA risk analysis for production processes? The cause could be given by the purely theoretical realization of these risk analyzes without a practical verification at the workstations (shop floor) of the potential ways of failure.
One of the methodologies that can be used to avoid these complaints and to continuously improve the quality of the products is R-FMEA.
R-FMEA helps:
- evaluation of the effectiveness of the actions of prevention and risk reduction
- detection of new quality risks by detecting potential failure modes previously identified
- further improvement of process documentation such as P-FMEA, Control Plans, Working Instructions.
The P-FMEA analyzes are preventive activities that must be carried out before the implementation of the various machines, equipment or means of production and in order to be able to verify if the theoretical outputs from P-FMEA correspond to the real situation of the production, R-FMEA should be performed.
The evaluation within the P-FMEA is made according to the place in the process where the potential failure modes analyzed and identified can be identified: at the station where they were created, at a later station or they cannot be identified in the process.
As a methodology, by chance or not, it respects a 5W2H structure:
- what (what): tool / methodology used for continuous improvement
- why: to reduce or at least to anticipate quality problems
- who (who): multidisciplinary team (leader, members, fresh-eye)
- where: at workstations (shop floor) considering the activities of reception, production, dispatch.
- when: especially during serial production
- how often (how often): frequency of implementation according to an R-FMEA audit program defined by the organization
- how (cum): by identifying new risks associated with real production situations
Realizing the importance of R-FMEA more and more OEM customers such as GM, PSA, RENAULT / DACIA require the use of this methodology.
If you would like to find out more about the benefits of using R-FMEA or the OEM customer requirements regarding this methodology, we invite you to the following training sessions organized by Effective Flux.
