FMEA
Also known as: Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
Definition
FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) is a structured risk-assessment method that identifies potential failure modes in a design or process, scores each by severity × occurrence × detection, and prioritises mitigation effort.
In depth
Two main flavours: Design FMEA (DFMEA) examines failure modes in a product design, and Process FMEA (PFMEA) examines failure modes in the manufacturing process producing it.
For each failure mode, the team assigns three scores on a 1-10 scale: Severity (how bad if it happens), Occurrence (how likely), and Detection (how likely is it to escape detection before reaching the customer). The product is the Risk Priority Number (RPN). Higher RPN → higher priority for mitigation.
AIAG-VDA's 2019 harmonised FMEA standard replaced RPN with Action Priority (AP) — a categorical High/Medium/Low rating that's less susceptible to RPN gaming. Both are accepted, but AP is now the recommendation.
FMEA is one of the six automotive Quality Core Tools and feeds the Control Plan: characteristics with high severity become Special Characteristics requiring tighter control.