8 APRIL 2024OPINIONPFMEA's Cost a Lot of ResourcesIn today's manufacturing environment, and especially in the automotive world of IATF 16949, there are expectations that risk prediction and mitigation tools will be used. One important method to accomplish this assessment is a process failure mode and effects analysis, or PFMEA, one of the most under-utilized and under-rated sources of information. It's a time-consuming, complex process to understand each step/operation of the process and list what things can go wrong or fail. PFMEAs are a required document during the advanced product quality planning stage of any new product that is usually driven by those designing processes and sometimes by a quality engineer to assess the risk of a process. This occurs in coordination with cross-functional teams of individuals, including engineering, quality, production, materials, etc., to understand the quality risk of a new product. The way that it works is each failure mode (the thing that can go wrong) is reviewed for its severity (how bad would it be if it happened?), occurrence (how often do we think it will happen?), and detectability (if it happened would we catch it?). Each category receives a rating from 1-10, from best to worst, based on an industry standard. Then, each is multiplied against HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR PROCESS FAILURE MODE AND EFFECTS ANALYSISBy Monte Heisler, Director, Manufacturing Quality, North American Stamping GroupMonte Heisler
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