Key takeaways
- Failure modes and effects analysis is a systematic process used to identify and prevent potential failures in designs, processes, and equipment.
- Calculating a risk priority number helps your maintenance team prioritize which potential failures to address first based on severity, occurrence, and detection.
- Implementing failure modes and effects analysis reduces unplanned downtime, lowers maintenance costs, and improves safety by helping teams move from reactive to proactive maintenance strategies.
- Successful failure modes and effects analysis requires a cross-functional team and a commitment to continuously review and update the analysis as new information becomes available.
Equipment failures derail production schedules, strain maintenance budgets, and create safety hazards across industrial facilities. For maintenance professionals, the challenge lies in preventing failures before they disrupt operations.
Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) provides a structured framework for doing just that. This proactive approach helps maintenance teams prioritize their efforts and allocate resources more effectively.
This article explains how FMEA works for maintenance operations, including when to use it, how to run the analysis, and how to turn results into maintenance strategies that cut downtime and boost reliability.
What is failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA)?
Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) assesses the potential causes of operational failures related to product design, assembly line production, and manufacturing equipment breakdowns.
No matter the business, the ultimate goal of FMEA is to keep the production of high-quality products moving.
According to the American Society for Quality, FMEA requires a cross-functional team to brainstorm how equipment may falter and its effects..
In addition to supporting equipment reliability, FMEA helps promote better maintenance strategies, safety measures, and regulatory compliance. It helps maintenance leaders get a clearer picture of how different operational processes impact one another, translating to optimized maintenance scheduling.
Four elements of failure modes and effects analysis
FMEA breaks down into four main parts:
- Failure modes: Failure modes refer to the various ways an asset, or its parts, can stop working correctly. For example, a centrifugal pump can experience hydraulic failure, mechanical failure, or corrosion.
- Failure causes: This component of the analysis involves good, old-fashioned brainstorming. Team leaders need to systematically evaluate each potential failure using what they've learned from past problems.
- Failure mode analysis: After you've identified what could cause failures, measure how often they happen and how bad the damage would be. This aspect involves ranking the estimated severity of each failure's effects (e.g., employee safety, business profitability, asset reliability), the likelihood of its occurrence, and its detection probability. The team then multiplies the three rankings to arrive at a risk priority number (RPN) to inform task prioritization.
- Action and review: Finally, the team develops an action plan for the recommendations. The right CMMS can help automate the entire process from digital checklist assignments to cost/time analysis.
When to use failure modes and effects analysis
Maintenance and operations teams should use FMEA as a proactive tool before failures occur, not just after. Consider conducting an analysis when your team is:
- Designing new equipment or processes for your facility.
- Applying an existing process or piece of equipment in a new way.
- Developing control plans for a new or modified maintenance procedure.
- Analyzing recurring failures of an existing asset or system.
- Looking to optimize preventive maintenance plans and schedules.
- Periodically reviewing safety and reliability throughout an asset's service life.
How does failure modes and effects analysis relate to maintenance?
Prioritizing the upkeep of hundreds of thousands of machines and parts isn't easy. FMEA helps maintenance professionals answer the question: what should we fix first?
Acting upon realistic FMEA data ultimately leads to reduced equipment downtime, decreased breakdown maintenance expenses, and safer teams.
Teams with successful FMEA programs go beyond analysis and actually follow through on what they find.
The easiest way to organize, analyze, and then act upon program data is to use a mobile Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).
Benefits of failure modes and effects analysis for maintenance operations
Adding FMEA to your maintenance approach gives you a clear way to make equipment more reliable and operations smoother.
Some of the main benefits for your maintenance operations include:
- Data-driven prioritization: This methodology gives your team a clear, numerical basis for prioritizing maintenance tasks, which helps them focus their limited time and resources on the potential failures with the greatest risk to production and safety.
- Reduced unplanned downtime: Catch potential failures early, and you'll have way fewer surprise breakdowns disrupting your production schedule.
- Improved resource allocation: With a clearer understanding of potential risks, you improve labor scheduling and parts inventory, ensuring you have the right people and materials ready for critical tasks without overstocking.
- Enhanced safety: The process spots safety risks before equipment fails, so you can fix problems and keep your team safe.
- Justification for maintenance budgets: The documented analysis provides evidence to justify investments in new tools, training, or proactive maintenance programs to senior leadership.
Three types of failure modes and effects analysis
Though the method includes several subsets, leaders most commonly break it down into three categories:
1. System failure modes and effects analysis
System FMEA, also referred to as functional analysis, evaluates failure modes from a bird's eye view. It focuses on entire systems and subsystems related to system integration, workplace safety, and anything else that affects overall productivity.
System analysis focuses on the fact that failures occur between multiple assets and processes. In other words, rarely is a system failure an isolated event. These include single-point failure modes that impact several touchpoints and complex failure modes isolated to specific machinery. Experts recommend performing system analysis before settling on functional system designs.
2. Design failure modes and effects analysis
As the name suggests, the primary focus of Design FMEA is the design of products and services.
The goal is to ensure company deliverables are safe, reliable, and of high quality for customers.
Operational leaders perform design analysis both before new deliverables move to production and during product design reiterations. The result of a successful design session is action items that will mitigate product malfunctions.
3. Process failure modes and effects analysis
Process FMEA focuses on the process used to make the product instead of the end product itself. Managers use process analysis to identify issues within the production processes involved in getting a product to market.
For example, a conveyor system in a food processing facility includes multiple components (motors, belts, sensors, and control systems). Each component results from unique manufacturing and installation processes. If leadership identifies a problem with conveyor belt slippage, they must evaluate all procedures involved in belt tensioning, motor alignment, and sensor calibration.
The scope of process analysis includes assembly operations, product labeling, parts management, and transportation of materials. Organizations typically perform this type of evaluation during the "feasibility study phase" in pre-production. The objective is to build strong production processes that support design specifications with minimal downtime.
How to conduct a failure mode effects analysis
The best time to run an initial analysis is during your organization's product development phase. This allows plenty of time to make adjustments to streamline product design and manufacturing processes. Of course, you can perform the evaluation any time you’d like to improve operational efficiency or quality control.
Failure modes and effects analysis process overview
Read on for detailed step-by-step guidance.
Step 1: Assemble your failure modes and effects analysis team
Despite the word "me" in the acronym, a successful FMEA analysis will include many team members.
With this in mind, put together a task force. In most cases, a production engineer or maintenance manager will lead the team. Other relevant roles include process engineers, process designers, suppliers, marketers, and even customers.
Step 2: Gather your data
Once you have your team in place, gather the following information:
Next, determine which type of analysis you will be conducting.
Step 3: Specify your scope
Identify the systems, subsystems, assemblies, and parts relationships your team will evaluate in the analysis. In addition, set up standard operating procedures to conduct and follow up on your efforts.
You can use a flowchart to visualize the details more clearly. It's crucial to make sure every team member is on the same page before the project begins.
Step 4: Identify potential failure modes
At this point, you're ready to consider the ways your assets can fail. Use maintenance history, frontline employee knowledge, and manufacturer's guidelines to brainstorm.
Your goal is to generate an exhaustive list of what could go wrong. When one thing fails, it often causes a domino effect throughout your system. Besides failure modes that cause assets to completely break down, consider modes that may result in:
- Unintended functions or results from an asset
- Substandard performance
- Reduced functionality
Isolate each asset and its components to identify all potential failure modes, including the hidden ones. Standard equipment failure modes include cracks, product deformation, torque fatigue, and electrical short circuits.
Step 5: Determine severity rankings
Severity rankings measure the overall effect of failure modes. Maintenance managers often use a scale from one to 10 to rank impact from low to high.
Generally, teams give higher severity rankings to failure modes that impact safety or the company's bottom line. Always prioritize failure modes with high severity rankings. For example, an automobile manufacturer may assign an airbag installation issue a high severity ranking because of its detrimental impact on safety and production delays.
Step 6: Determine occurrence rankings
Occurrence ranking measures how frequently the failure modes are likely to happen. It's also measured on a scale of one to 10.
When determining occurrence ranking, consider all the potential causes of the failure mode and existing prevention controls.
Using the example we mentioned in the previous step, why would the car manufacturer receive faulty airbags or delayed deliveries? It could be a mixup from the supplier, discrepancies when ordering, or a communication breakdown. Are there any controls to ensure these don't happen? If yes, then incorrect airbag installation will receive a low or moderate occurrence ranking.
Step 7: Determine detection rankings
Now figure out the failure detection ranking for each failure mode. Basically, how easy is it to spot the problem before it actually happens? High detection rankings mean it's nearly impossible to identify and resolve problems before failures occur.
Step 8: Calculate risk priority number and prioritize actions
Time to crunch the numbers: multiply severity by occurrence by detection to get your risk priority number (RPN). This helps you decide which improvements matter most.
Risk Priority Number = Severity × Occurrence × Detection
Remember, what counts as critical varies by industry and company. Your team needs to decide what RPN threshold makes a failure mode worth immediate attention.
Step 9: Develop a preventive maintenance program
This is the stage where you focus on the core purpose of your program: to reduce the identified risks through data-informed actions. Develop a proactive maintenance program to help minimize the risk of asset failure. Always tackle the failure modes with high risk priority numbers first.
Also prioritize the assets with high severity rankings regardless of whether their RPN is low. A high severity rating means the failure will significantly impact business productivity, customer satisfaction, and safety.
Step 10: Recalculate your risk priority numbers
Don't forget to check back regularly and recalculate your numbers to see if your fixes are actually working. Have your team re-rank severity, occurrence, and detection scores, then calculate new RPNs and compare them to your original numbers.
You want to keep improving until those risk numbers drop so low you barely need to worry about them. For this reason, the FMEA methodology is an ongoing process.
Failure modes and effects analysis process example
Here's a quick example of a process conducted for a vehicle airbag installation:
- Function: Airbag installation
- Failure mode: Incorrect airbag installed
- Failure effects: Deployment malfunction resulting in physical injury to the driver
- Severity ranking: 10
- Causes of failure: Human error
- Occurrence ranking: 4
- Failure prevention controls: Manually inspect airbags after the supplier delivers them
- Detection controls: Use sensors to test airbag functionality after installation
- Detection ranking: 6
- Risk priority number: 240
Common roadblocks with failure modes and effects analysis
Done right, FMEA helps leaders reduce risks, speed up development, and maintain quality.
But not everyone who undertakes the process achieves the expected results. Here are the most common reasons FMEA falls short:
- Ineffective team: Teams that don't include people from different parts of the process usually won't have sufficient knowledge of all the product or process lifecycle. You need to tackle problems at every stage, including design, development, manufacturing, and deployment, for FMEA to work best.
- Disorganized documents: Some teams, in a rush to complete the process, haphazardly compile information and documents. Confusion prevents them from recalculating numbers and pivoting their efforts when needed.
- Over-reliance on risk priority number: Don't get so focused on the numbers that you miss the bigger picture. It's best to use the number as an overall benchmark while still considering the impact of the individual scores.
Simplify failure mode and effects analysis with MaintainX
Even with a well-designed FMEA approach, progress won't happen overnight. Make plans to revisit RPNs and team efforts regularly.
A CMMS like MaintainX can help your teams share data points and glean insights from advanced reporting. Plus, work order software that prioritizes usability makes it simpler to track corrective actions and verify whether risk priority numbers are decreasing over time.
Ready to build a more reliable maintenance operation? Sign up for free to see how MaintainX can support your FMEA efforts.
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) in manufacturing FAQs
What does failure mode and effects analysis stand for in manufacturing?
FMEA stands for failure mode and effects analysis. It's a methodology that helps manufacturing teams identify potential equipment failures, assess their severity, and prioritize corrective actions to protect both production quality and worker safety.
How often should you perform failure mode and effects analysis in manufacturing?
Most manufacturing facilities conduct FMEA during initial product or process design and revisit the analysis annually or whenever significant process changes occur. Regular reviews help teams recalculate risk priority numbers and adapt maintenance strategies to evolving conditions.
How does a computerized maintenance management system support the failure mode and effects analysis process?
A CMMS centralizes maintenance data, work order histories, and asset performance records that FMEA teams need for accurate risk rankings. Real-time reporting makes it easier to track corrective actions and verify that risk priority numbers decrease over time.
What is a good risk priority number for failure mode and effects analysis?
There's no universal RPN threshold because acceptable risk varies by industry. Most teams define their own cutoff, then focus corrective actions on failure modes that exceed it while prioritizing any mode with a high severity rating.
What is the difference between failure mode and effects analysis and failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis?
FMEA focuses on identifying failure modes and their effects through qualitative analysis. FMECA adds a quantitative criticality analysis that ranks failure modes by probability and consequence, making it better suited for industries requiring detailed numerical risk data.
Caroline Eisner is a writer and editor with experience across the profit and nonprofit sectors, government, education, and financial organizations. She has held leadership positions in K16 institutions and has led large-scale digital projects, interactive websites, and a business writing consultancy.
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