Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) was one of the first systematic techniques for failure analysis.

It was developed by reliability engineers in the 1950s to study problems that might arise from malfunctions of military systems. An FMEA is often the first step of a system reliability study, and can be used in engineering projects at any stage.  It involves reviewing as many components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify failure modes, and their causes and effects.  For each component, the failure modes and their resulting effects on the rest of the system are recorded in a specific FMEA worksheet.  This works particularly well for new product development activities, when the team of project stakeholders can brainstorm all possible foreseeable failure modes and mitigations before a design has even been committed to paper, thereby implementing a huge project efficiency.

Several different types of FMEA analyses exist, such as

  • Functional
  • Design
  • Process FMEA

We at Orion Product development specialise in Design FMEA or DFMEA for short, and can provide all of the tools and templates required and facilitate the process itself, while training and mentoring your team in the required techniques so they can be used efficiently on future projects