FMEA / 005OFFLINE
PFMEA (AIAG-VDA)
Process FMEA in the seven AIAG-VDA steps: structure, functions, failure chains, risk and optimization.
Example project · Illustrative data from an imaginary SMT line, not from a real plant. Change anything, open a file or clear it to work on your own project.
This screen is too narrow for editing. You can look through the project here; open it on a wider screen to change it.
AP table not verified. The Action Priority values below come from a table that was written from memory and has not been checked against the AIAG-VDA handbook. Do not use them for decisions until the table is confirmed.
Keyboard
- ↑ ↓ move, → open or go in, ← close or go out, Home End
- Enter or F2 edit the selected row; in a field Enter adds the next row, Ctrl+Enter adds a child, Esc returns to the tree
- Insert add a row after this one, Ctrl+Enter add a child, Delete remove
- Ctrl+C / X / V copy, cut, paste a row or a whole branch; Ctrl+D duplicate
- Alt+↑ ↓ move among siblings; drag rows to reorder or move them
- Ctrl+Z undo, Ctrl+Y redo
- Risk analysis table: ↑ ↓ Home End PageUp PageDown choose a failure chain, Enter edit it
Method
- Seven steps (AIAG-VDA process FMEA): 1 planning (what is analysed, by whom, why: the project row), 2 structure (the process item, its process steps and the work elements of each step, sorted by the 4M: man, machine, material, environment, method), 3 functions (what the item, each step and each work element must do; the product characteristic a step creates and the process characteristic a work element controls), 4 failures (a failure mode is a function not fulfilled; its effects are what follows, its causes are what a work element does or fails to do), 5 risk analysis (the controls in place and the ratings), 6 optimization (actions, who does them by when, and the ratings after them), 7 documentation (revisions, the Excel file and the printed form). Steps 2–4 are in the Structure view, steps 5–6 in the Risk analysis view, step 7 in Export XLSX and Print / PDF.
- Failure chain: one cause of one failure mode, together with the effects of that mode. Effects have three levels: your own plant, the next plant or customer, and the end user. The severity (S) of a chain is the highest severity among the effects of its mode.
- Ratings are whole numbers from 1 to 10. S tells how bad the worst effect is. O (occurrence) tells how likely the cause is with the prevention controls that exist today. D (detection) tells how likely the current detection controls are to catch the cause or the failure before it leaves the process; a high D means it is likely to be missed. The short guides next to each rating are written for this tool as prompts for the team's discussion and are deliberately simple: adapt them to your product and agree them with your customer.
- Action priority (AP) and RPN. The older risk priority number multiplies the three ratings (S × O × D). Different situations give the same product: 9 × 2 × 2 and 4 × 3 × 3 both give 36, although the first one has a severe effect. AP instead looks the combination up in a table that puts severity first, then occurrence, then detection, and answers High (action is needed, or the team must justify why not), Medium (action should be considered) or Low. The RPN is shown for comparison only. Warning: the AP table in this tool was written from memory and has not been checked against the AIAG-VDA handbook. Until it is confirmed, do not use the AP values for decisions; the tool says so wherever AP appears.
- Optimization: an action is a preventive action (lowers occurrence) or a detection action (lowers D), with a person, a target date and a status. When an action is done, enter the new S, O and D; the Risk analysis view then shows the AP after the actions next to the current one and counts how many chains changed. Open actions whose target date has passed are marked overdue.
- Classification: characteristics and chains can be marked with symbols such as CC (critical) or SC (significant). The symbols are yours: change, add or remove them on the project row.
- Working: everything can be done with the keyboard (the Keyboard list under the editor shows the keys); rows and whole branches can be copied, pasted, duplicated, moved and dragged. Every change can be undone (up to 200 steps) and is written to a change log; name a revision on the project row to start a new one.
- Saving: this file stores nothing in the browser. Use Save JSON to keep your work and Open… to continue; an Excel file exported from here can be opened again as well. The same project file works in the online PFMEA and control plan.
- Limits: below 760 px width the project can only be viewed. The Excel file has no cell formatting (the workbook writer in use cannot write styles); only the hidden data sheet is read back on import, and changes made in Excel to the visible sheets are noticed but not read. Page numbers on printed pages need a browser that supports page margin boxes (Chromium-based browsers do).