Today, most manufacturing operations face constraints in time, budget, and expertise. Failure mode, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA) is a structured work priority system that helps teams make the best possible use of maintenance resources.
FMECA drives smart decisions about where to allocate your resources. In this article, we’ll talk about what FMECA is, and what it can do for your operation. We’ll also explain the differences between FMECA and other work priority systems, like FMEA.
What is FMECA?
FMECA is a data-driven work priority system. It is one of the most granular and systematic approaches to ranking maintenance tasks. FMECA consists of three parts, and each one feeds into the next.
Failure mode identifies the points at which an asset or a system can fail. Typically, there are multiple failure modes for every piece of equipment.
Effects looks at how each potential failure will impact operations. Not all failure modes are created equal. Some will bring the production line to a halt. Others don’t significantly impact productivity. It’s important to know exactly which failure modes pose the most risk.
Criticality analysis determines which failure modes are the most severe in terms of their effect on operations and takes into account productivity, safety, and environmental considerations.
Done right, FMECA can pinpoint the failure modes that matter most to a plant. Once that is determined, an organization can focus on the assets – and the components – that need it the most.
What is the difference between FMECA and FMEA?
FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis) is a close cousin of FMECA. Like FMECA, FMEA identifies possible failures and then studies the potential ripple effect of each failure.
It can be helpful to think of FMECA as the next stage after FMEA. FMEA identifies a wide range of potential failures that could affect the production line.
FMECA brings in more data to determine the concrete impact of each failure mode. That’s how you’ll know which components, and which assets are the most critical to operations. For example, a reliability engineer looking to start a predictive maintenance program might use FMECA to determine where best to launch their wireless vibration sensor pilot, or even where to focus maintenance efforts in general.
Ideally, operations should employ both FMEA and FMECA. Together, the two approaches identify failure modes, determine their impact on the final product, and make the best possible use of maintenance resources.
Using eMaint for FMECA
FMECA is one of the most data-driven work priority systems available. That’s why it’s a natural fit for eMaint CMMS. FMECA makes predictions about future maintenance needs. But it needs plenty of detailed, accurate data in order to make those predictions. That’s where eMaint comes in.
eMaint stores work order data and makes it easy to search that data. When you’re setting up FMECA, use eMaint’s reporting function to build your list of failure modes. You can also use eMaint’s failure codes to figure out how often failures occur.
eMaint’s work order and reporting features also let you pinpoint the impact of past machine failures. Which failures had a domino effect on other assets? Which caused your operation to shut down? Use these insights to predict the effect of each failure mode.
Once you’ve determined the failure modes and their effects, you’re ready to conduct your criticality analysis.
How Does Asset Criticality Analysis Work?
The final step to implementing FMECA is creating a solid asset criticality analysis. In the end, that’s how to best determine where to direct maintenance resources.
You should focus maintenance resources on potential failures that are severe enough to impact safety or operations. Don’t get bogged down trying to prepare for very rare problems or even problems that pop up often but don’t impact operations.
Criticality analysis is probably the most important piece of FMECA. It’s worth taking the time to implement it correctly. It can also be a good idea to partner with experienced providers who can help your team.
Working with the Experts on FMECA and Criticality Analysis
The experts at Fluke Reliability offer training for teams working to implement FMECA. The training covers key FMECA topics like
- Failure modes
- Severity of failure modes
- Probability of occurrence
- Risk priorities
By the end of our five-day FMECA training, your teams will have done a comprehensive review of potential component failures and their effects. You’ll also learn which maintenance tasks your teams should focus on in order to minimize the chances of the most severe failure modes taking place.
It’s a great way to start shifting to a structured, data-driven decision-making process. Before long, you’ll likely see changes across your whole operation, so that you have greater productivity and less unplanned downtime.