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9/12/2021 How To Properly Perform DFMEA & PFMEA [Examples Included]

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Table of Contents
Part of the FMEA family

DFMEA vs PFMEA

Design FMEA explained

The outline of the DFMEA process

DFMEA example

Process FMEA explained

The outline of the PFMEA process

PFMEA example

Parting thoughts

June 12 2020

How To Properly Perform DFMEA & PFMEA


[Practical Examples Included]

A system is only as strong as its weakest link.

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Whenever
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sure that every step of the process and every product component can efficiently do what
they are supposed to do. This is where PFMEA and DFMEA can help.

In complex processes and products, finding and improving the weakest links is easier
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said than done. Luckily, techniques like Process FMEA and Design FMEA can help us
find potential problems in theory – so we can minimize (or eliminate) the chance of their
occurrence in practice.

DFMEA and PFMEA are fairly complex technical processes, but we will do our best to
explain when and how they are used. We will finish our step-by-step explanations for
each methodology with a practical example.

Part of the FMEA family


Before we can explain DFMEA and PFMEA, we have to backtrack a bit and touch on the
original maintenance reliability analysis tool they both originated from, called FMEA.

FMEA stands for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis, and it represents a step-by-step
approach one can take to identify all possible failures (in a certain design, product,
process, or service) and assess the possible effects of those failures. Ultimately, the
FMEA methodology helps you determine which steps you can take to mitigate some of
the risks that come with any system’s failure.

While the execution is similar, some specifics differentiate how someone approaches
identifying design versus process failures, which is why FMEA is split into different
categories like DFMEA and PFMEA.

DFMEA vs PFMEA
The main difference between these two methods can be realized by just looking at their
names. Design FMEA concentrates on creating reliable products, while Process FMEA
focuses on developing reliable processes.

While they can be used independently, they are often used together as a part of the
Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) process. APQP is a five-stage process used
by manufacturers to create a product quality plan for developing and manufacturing
products that meet customer requirements.

For instance, you can use them when you are introducing a new product to the market.
DFMEA ensures you have a quality product. PFMEA helps you establish an efficient and
reliable manufacturing process for that product.

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Differences between DFMEA and PFMEA – Image source

If you are a manufacturing organization that strives for continuous improvement and
relies on concepts like six sigma and TPM, DFMEA and PFMEA can be used as a
regular add-on for making incremental improvements to existing products and processes.

We realize that this might sound pretty confusing to someone that isn’t that familiar with
the subject matter but don’t worry, we will explain it in detail! Let’s take a deeper dive into
each method to get a better idea of how these techniques are executed in practice.

Design FMEA explained

What is DFMEA?
DFMEA stands for Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. Many industries worldwide
adopt it as a qualitative tool that puts their designs under the microscope. It serves to
review designs to identify what might go wrong, in which way would the failure
manifest, and what would be the consequences of those failures.

Key decision-makers then use the information in the product design and product
development phases to improve a product’s quality by making recommended
modifications before execution. However, not all “negatives” of a design will be corrected.

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In some
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but not eliminate it.

With DFMEA, material properties, geometry, regulatory requirements, tolerances,


interactions, and how the item behaves in its environment are all things that need to be
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considered. When conducted properly, DFMEA improves the performance and safety of
the final product.

There are two main instances in which one might decide to perform Design FMEA:

1. creating a new product


2. redesigning an existing product

Who performs DFMEA?


For the DFMEA process to achieve its goals, it has to be conducted by a cross-functional
team of engineers and members of different departments. The project should be led by
an experienced product design engineer and include:

testing analysis engineer


product quality engineer
material engineer
a member of production, service, and logistics teams

Of course, this is just a recommended team setup. You can go with a different structure.
However, keep in mind that it is important to have diverse expertise on the team that
covers every part of the production process. It is the only way to eliminate potential blind
spots.

The outline of the DFMEA process


The approach to DFMEA has to be methodological. Best practices suggest the following
steps outlined in a standard DFMEA worksheet.

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DFMEA
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Each step of DFMEA builds on the subsequent one, always supplying key indicators that
will be used to make crucial decisions.

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STEP #1: REVIEW THE with Limble
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The design phase is where the multidisciplinary team goes through every system,
subsystem, interface, and component to determine what could go wrong. Details
are then included in the items, functions, and requirements section of the DFMEA
worksheet.

The aim is to see just how good a design is and whether changes should be made to
make it better.

Breakdown of system, subsystem, and component in DFMEA – Image source

The design dictates the direction that the project will take and therefore plays a vital role
in decoupling each system/component from the whole. The DFMEA worksheet is
completed in stages closely tied to the project’s design timeline during this decoupling.
This helps to effectively isolate each item so that interactions are revealed, which helps
us identify failure modes more easily.

It’s then possible to consider collective or selective recommended actions at later stages.

STEP #2: IDENTIFY FAILURE MODES


Once systems/components are decoupled, the next step is to thoroughly assess each to
determine all the possible ways they can fail and include this in column 4 of the DFMEA
worksheet.

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There
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1. Full failure: The system or component is no longer functional and needs to be


removed entirely due to its life cycle and be replaced.
2. Partial failure: There is still some functionality, but the system or component is not
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operating as it should.
3. Intermittent failure: Where the malfunction occurs on an irregular basis.
4. Degraded failure: Frequent usage leads to fatigue which weakens the functionality
of an item
5. Unintentional failure: Failure from one item affects another.

A component or system may have more than one failure mode, and it’s important to
document each at this stage.

Different things can affect failure modes:

Operating conditions: a look at the environment (hot, cold, humid, covered or


exposed…)
Usage: look at the function of the item
Service operations: look at whether the item will be accessible, the possible errors
that could occur if it’s substituted with a wrong item, and whether it’s challenging to
construct.

STEP #3: LIST THE POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF EACH


FAILURE MODE
A system or component rarely fails without triggering aftershocks. These aftershocks – or
effects – can either be minor or devastating. A minor effect would be a lightbulb suddenly
failing after an electric surge. In contrast, a catastrophic effect would be a massive fire
that results in lost property due to a lightning protection system’s failure. Both have
different consequences and are weighted differently in Design FMEA.

Put simply; failure effects can be loss of life, environmental damage, financial loss,
property destruction, impact on regulatory requirements, as well as public scrutiny.

STEP #4: ASSIGN SEVERITY RANKING


In this step, you want to know the consequence and impact of a failure mode. In other
words, just how serious are the effects of each failure mode on the system, component,
user, and other people? What bad news I do not want to hear if there is failure?

The degree of severity you can assign is relative: what you might consider to be very
severe might not be severe on another project.

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Expert
1 (801) opinions that are guided by experience help to narrow down the severity
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failure mode. To make this easier, DFMEA uses the following scale:

9-10: Very severe consequences where regulatory and safety factors cannot be
overlooked. Often results in a change of the design direction.
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7-8: Loss or degradation of the primary function of the component/system studied.
5-6: Loss or degradation of the secondary function of the component/system
studied.
2-4: Annoyance that doesn’t affect functionality.

STEP #5: DEFINE THE CAUSE/MECHANISMS OF FAILURE


In column 8 of the DFMEA worksheet, we are getting closer to knowing just how good is
our design and whether we’ll still have a valid design after all the failure modes are
considered. A weakness in the design will fail, so the more weaknesses we identify
and resolve, the fewer failures we will have to consider.

Conciseness and completeness are the keywords at this stage. You don’t want to get lost
in long descriptions where it takes a lot of time to understand the causes or mechanisms.
Every cause or mechanism you can think of should be listed, but staying focused with
pertinent ones will ensure you don’t go off track.

STEP #6: ASSESS CURRENT DESIGN CONTROLS


In keeping with our previous analogy, we want to know how the current design controls
react to prevent and detect the weakest links. The design controls should be robust
enough to prevent failure modes.

The two types of design controls considered in columns 9 and 11 of the DFMEA
worksheet are prevention control and detection control, and they provide valuable
information to guide corrective actions later on:

Prevention control aims to eliminate the cause/mechanism from occurring.


Examples of prevention control include design requirements, engineering
requirements, material requirements, and documentation. These are usually carved
in stone to ensure that certain regulatory and project considerations are followed.
Detection control seeks to identify the mechanisms and cause of the failure and is
used in prototyping, functional testing, reliability testing, and simulations.

The aim of each of these is to detect failures before the items go into operation mode.

STEP #7: ASSIGN OCCURRENCE RANKING


Occurrence ranking in DFMEA seeks to establish the likelihood that a specific cause
will result in a failure mode based on a scale of 1 to 10, as represented in the table
below.
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Occurrence rank designation – Image source

You are looking into the future and using experience from your team members and
yourself to guide your judgment. With occurrence ranking, we don’t talk about
absolute value. Instead, we talk about a relative deduction supported by experience,
research, brainstorming, and other information-gathering techniques.

STEP #8: ASSIGN DETECTION RANKING


In column 12 of the DFMEA worksheet, you are still working with your team to assess the
design controls already in place. In this phase, you are working based on assumptions
that the failure has occurred. The exercise aims to create different scenarios that help to
sift through the complexities and give you a clear vision of how the current design detects
failures.

Detection ranking assigns a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means that failure cannot occur,
while 10 stands for almost impossible to detect.

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Detection rank designation – Image source

Now, you might be curious: Do I choose prevention control or detection control for my
project? The answer is that you should always aim to have robust prevention control in a
place where possible. As explained earlier, prevention control eliminates the cause or
mechanism of failure, which has an impact on the occurrence. Detection control identifies
when failure has occurred but does not prevent it.

STEP #9: CALCULATE THE RISK PRIORITY NUMBER


(RPN)
The Risk Priority Number is calculated simply by multiplying severity, occurrence,
and detection (which were covered in steps #4, #7, and #8 respectively).

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The value you get will be between 1 and 1000 (as all 3 factors are ranked on a scale of 1
to 10). The higher the RPN, the higher the risk involved. This is where design
modifications are considered and take us to our next step in determining corrective
actions.

STEP #10: DETERMINE CORRECTIVE ACTIONS


A high RPN means that an unchanged design will have numerous risks. How do you
resolve this?

A good starting point is to determine what is an acceptable RPN for your organization.

A low RPN on a particular item does not mean there are no risks. Good design practice
would be to look at the design holistically and see where the RPN can be lowered, even
when it is already low.

Critical components that have high RPN require special care with specific
recommendations. These recommendations can take the form of revising the design to
look for engineering guidelines that may have been missed, starting from scratch with a
new design, or taking additional recommendations into considerations. All these actions
aim to see how to adjust severity, occurrence, and detection.

As a guide, severity should only change if the failure has been removed – which may
involve a complete design change.

To lower the occurrence ranking, you’ll need to go back to the basics where the
causes/mechanisms are listed in column 8 of the DFMEA worksheet. Assess each cause
or mechanism carefully with a focus on removing or using control measures.

To lower detection, you can implement more preventative measures bearing in mind that
these might increase costs.

STEP #11: ASSIGN, PLAN, AND EXECUTE


Once you have decided which actions you’d like to take to adjust the RPN, the next steps
are identifying who will do what and agree on a completion date. That being said, things
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often
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that.

You can note the actual finished date so that you can keep track of where you were
before the project execution, as you progress throughout the sheet with design changes.
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STEP #12: REANALYZE THE RPN


So you’ve concluded that the RPN is not what you wanted based on a threshold you had.
You decided to change some aspects of the design to remove or lower the failure modes
and effects. After the new calculation and mistake-proofing, there is a slight decrease in
occurrence and detection. But you are still not satisfied. Do you continue recalculating
and redesigning?

There will come a moment when a particular item’s cost-effectiveness is no longer


feasible – even if it has a lower RPN. At this stage, you’ll need to assess your risks
carefully to determine which are critical and which aren’t. Further consultations with a
multi-disciplinary team may be necessary.

At the end of the day, the goal is to have an optimal design with tolerable or no risks.

DFMEA example
After a lot of theory, now it’s time to apply everything with an example. Albert Einstein
also believed that “Example isn’t another way to teach when he said, it is the only way to
teach.”

The example we’ll consider is one we’ve already mentioned in step #3 with the lightning
arrester and lightning protection system (LPS). To keep our example short and
understandable, we’ll only consider items 1 and 3 of the LPS, and we won’t be
recalculating the RPN. We are also not considering whole items, subparts of interfaces.

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Lightning arrestor system – Image source

We can see from the table above, that the RPN is 800 in all cases. If our predetermined
RPN threshold was 200 for example, then we would have to find ways to reduce our
failure modes by looking at the severity, occurrence, and detection of each item.

Process FMEA explained


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What is PFMEA?
PFMEA stands for Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. Unlike DFMEA, which
focuses on design, PFMEA focuses on processes. It is a qualitative tool that zooms in
on current processes to see where they can be improved and helps in developing new,
reliable and efficient, processes.

The PFMEA can be used in many different scenarios:

before control plans are developed for a new or modified process


when a new process, step,  method, requirements, or technology is introduced
when an existing process step is slated for improvements
when there’s a new way of implementing an existing process
during the execution of the process for quality control measures

As we have already seen, there is a lot of back-and-forth information between PFMEA


and DFMEA. For instance, if you are changing the design of an existing product, the
manufacturing process also has to be reestablished. This exchange is crucial in refining
the removal of risks in a project to improve the design and process quality. Some risks
will not be seen during a DFMEA, but these can appear while preparing the PFMEA.

Who performs PFMEA


Process FMEA should also be performed by a cross-functional team led by the process
owner. The rest of the team should consist of members of different departments like:

design
production
quality
service
logistics

Each team member should be experienced in his field so they are able to understand

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how851-1218
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process from their perspective.

The outline of the PFMEA process


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The steps in PFMEA with the in each column
gradually works its way to the final calculation of the RPN.

PFMEA worksheet – Image source

STEP #1: REVIEW THE PROCESS


PFMEA begins with reviewing the process by using a process map. This map is a
detailed flowchart that identifies what the process does and doesn’t do – a.k.a process
flow diagram.

The diagram shows from input to output all the activities associated with each process,
including interfaces. To put it simply, the process map guides the team from the moment
a process starts to the moment it ends by providing a logical manner to assess what
details are involved in its entire journey.

In the PFMEA flowchart, the process function and requirements can be completed at this
stage. But before we move to step 2, let’s see what’s involved in the process function and
requirement:

Process function: Defines the intent of the operation. Put simply, it specifies the
reason/purpose of an action.
Process requirement: In this column, the team defines the What for each process.
This “What” includes all the inputs for each process.

STEP #2: IDENTIFY POTENTIAL FAILURE MODES


In PFMEA, potential failure modes are the weak links that cause a process to fail. It is
assumed that the materials and the way they are designed to fulfill acceptable standards.
If there is reason to believe that defects, quality issues, design flaws, or information from
historical records count towards better analysis, then these take precedence over the
assumptions.

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The851-1218
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STEP #3: LIST THE EFFECTS OF EACH FAILURE


Process failure effects impact end-users, internal customers, external customers,
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Demo Therefore,
execution. a lot of
“How” and “What’ questions are necessary.

System model of a failure – Image source

These impacts should be consistent with what was already decided by the team during
the DFMEA brainstorming. They should also be noted separately, even if they are
already mentioned in the DFMEA worksheet.

As in DFMEA, PFMEA recognizes five failure modes:

1. Full failure
2. Partial failure
3. Intermittent failure
4. Degraded failure
5. Unintentional failure

STEP #4 – ASSIGN A SEVERITY RANKING


The severity column in the PFMEA worksheet looks at the criticality of the effects of each
failure mode. It reflects how bad the situation might become if the failure mode is not
resolved. The severity column assigns a scale of 1 to 10 to measure just how serious
the result would be.

Again, this is a relative scaling based on the experience and knowledge of the
multidisciplinary team. We already mentioned how each number is classified in DFMEA,

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but to
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9 to 10: Very severe consequences where regulatory/safety factors cannot be


overlooked.
7 to 8: Loss or degradation of the primary function of the component/system
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studied.
5 to 6: Loss or degradation of the secondary function of the component/system
studied.
2-4: Annoyance that doesn’t affect functionality.

The classification column helps to prioritize the failure modes that require urgent
attention, special products (material sensitivity in certain environments), and
requirements (legislation).

STEP #5: IDENTIFY CAUSE/MECHANISMS OF FAILURE


Moving along the PFMEA worksheet, you now want to know “How could this happen?” in
the cause/mechanisms column. This “How” can either be caused by a weakness in the
design or the process. The aim is to identify these weaknesses to see what should and
can be done to correct them.

To achieve this, broad statements that do not provide any specific detail about the “How”
should be avoided. As with the DFMEA worksheet, conciseness and completeness are
two essential parameters that define how each cause/mechanism is best detailed.

STEP #6: CURRENT PROCESS CONTROLS


Prevention and detection are two design controls that appear in Process FMEA. The
associated definitions are the same as DFMEA, but for thoroughness, let’s have a quick
look at how each applies to PFMEA:

Prevention control: During the input and output journey of a process, many weak
links can cause failure to occur. If there are measures to stop, remove, and
eliminate this possibility along a process, we will lower the number of failures and
risks involved.
Detection control: Maybe, during a particular process, it’s not possible to prevent
a failure. If this is not a critical failure, then measures should be in place to detect it.
By recognizing it, you also open the possibility of using prevention controls if
needed.

Some degree of assumption is needed to know if the current process controls are robust
enough. Therefore, you’ll create what-if scenarios. You will imagine that a particular
process has failed to see how the other processes might be affected. Doing so narrows
down the risks involved and helps to identify how different processes are interconnected.

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STEP
1 (801) #7:
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Before calculating the RPN, you need to ask: How frequently will the cause/mechanisms
that lead to failure modes occur on a scale of 1 to 10? This can tricky to estimate. If you
have a similar process you can use as an example, the typical occurrence scale can go
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as follows:

1: Prevented through product/process design


2: 1 in 1,000, 000
3: 1in 100,000
4: 1 in 10,000
5: 1 in 2,000
6: 1 in 500
7: 1 in 100
8: 1 in 50
9: 1 in 20
10: 1 in 10

STEP #8: CALCULATE RISK PRIORITY NUMBER (RPN)


Multiply severity, occurrence, and detection together to get the RPN. The meaning of
your final result will depend on what you defined as acceptable and unacceptable. High
RPNs are known to include high risks, and therefore, steps should be made to lower this
value.

STEP #9: TAKING CORRECTIVE ACTIONS


We now have a lot of information about the processes, the associated failure modes, and
the effects of each. We also know just how severe the failure mode will be, how often it
will occur, and what we have already implemented to detect or prevent different failure
types.

We need to prioritize our findings to decide which is urgent and should be corrected by
appropriate process changes. Naturally, processes with high risks should be at the top of
the priority list.
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STEP
1 (801) # 10:
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With the corrective actions defined, the next step is to have a living document of steps
and actions. We want to remove weak links in our processes, and we need to look at
both our design and our process flow chart. We should ask:
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Who will be responsible for putting the recommended actions in place?
When can we expect these changes to be made?
How will these changes affect the available resources we have for other processes
and design changes?
What are the highest priorities?

After the changes have been implemented, we can calculate RPN to see if we were able
to reduce it.

STEP # 11: RECALCULATE RISK PRIORITY NUMBER


An RPN recalculation provides information about the effect of each of our actions on the
weakest link. We defined our action plan in step #9 and decided to implement each in
step # 10. Now we want to know the effect our changes had on the process and design
and see if we could address all failure modes with high severity in the best way possible.

Once we know that the changes address all the risks and have identified those risks that
aren’t serious, it’s time to agree with the team and wrap things up.

PFMEA example
We look at our previous example, but this time from a process and not a design point of
view. We consider the processes involved in 1, 2, and 3 to keep our example short and
easy to understand. We won’t consider recalculating the RPN.

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Lightning arrestor system – Image source

PROCESS FMEA EXAMPLE STEPS #1 TO #7


We look at all the activities involved and also interfaces. Different questions are asked
during the different steps to guide where RPN requires attention. From steps 1 to 7, we
define the failure modes and associated effects if the correct process is not adopted to
erect the Lightning Protection System. In the column “requirements,” these are mostly
design-related factors that must be optimal to avoid high failure occurrences.

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PROCESS FMEA EXAMPLE STEPS #8 TO #10


From our calculations, we see that RPN varies from 160 to 700. What we choose to do
next will depend on the RPN threshold we use as a measuring stick.

It is worth noting that an RPN below a certain threshold may still need to be adjusted if
the severity is high, and there are no control methods to prevent or detect certain failure
modes. While time-consuming, this holistic approach guarantees optimality in both
design and processes.

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As all people in technical fields know, theory is not worth much if it doesn’t
translate into practice. If your process relies on visual inspections and other
preventive maintenance work, maintenance teams need to follow that up by
creating and following their preventive maintenance schedules. CMMS is here

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to help you coordinate those activities and ensure your PFMEA and DFMEA
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efforts are not wasted. 

Parting thoughts
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Despite their many advantages, Design FMEA and Process FMEA will not solve every
failure. If that was the case, maintenance managers and reliability engineers would never
have to concern themselves with failure metrics.

The types of failures identified and associated solutions are closely tied with the
experience and knowledge of the multi-disciplinary team tasked to conduct the process
and their access to historical records. One of the ways to gather historical data is to use
CMMS software like Limble that will always save data about different failures and their
potential causes in the asset logs.   If you don’t know what a CMMS is, check out our
What is a CMMS System and How Does it Work guide.

If you can handle a somewhat steep learning curve, DFMEA and PFMEA are invaluable
risk assessment tools that can have a big impact on your bottom line.

We hope that this provided a nice overview of what is required to use these risk
assessment techniques. We could not include every detail of every step, as this article
would be extremely long. For those that are seriously thinking of using DFMEA and
PFMEA, we suggest you look for relevant courses and certifications that provide more
hands-on experience.

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