FMEA Implementation: Before, During, and After

By George Santos Norat, P.E.

Introduction

FMEA has been a common task in the maintenance group objectives in the past years. This tool is one of the most powerful tools of any reliability initiative. Providing consulting services, I’ve noticed that there is a need to share basic principles required to implement an FMEA initiative. The aim of this article is to cover part of this need with some basic concepts that are often overlooked.

Before FMEA

Several customers align resources to reliability programs aimed at improving maintenance programs. Some of them, those with formal training, know that FMEA’s are part of this journey to reliability and proceed with a criticality analysis, then with FMEA for those “show stoppers” type of equipment. Typically, services are outsourced to prepare such FMEA’s due to the nature of the work involved, which is a repetitive actions task. During the selection of the resources for FMEA preparation, it is common to overlook the need of background in the maintenance field and other factors are over considerate, like financial aspects. At this point, it is important to evaluate the impact of obvious financial aspects, like most cost effective proposal, vs. non obvious aspects, like impact on quality of the project due to utilization of resources with lack of expertise in the maintenance field. It is recommended to have a resource with background in maintenance learn the methodologyof FMEA rather than a resource with background in FMEA learning about maintenance. On the long run, the first option will deliver practical results in a shorter period of time and aligned to the knowledge of a maintenance practitioner. This the practical thought process to follow prior to commencing an FMEA initiative.

Another area to evaluate is formal training in FMEA preparation. FMEA preparation is underestimated and seen as an EXCEL spreadsheet with a straight forward methodology to fill the cells. Failure modes on a piece of equipment require strong background on equipment functions as part of the process requirements not equipment functionalities. The reason, there are equipment functions not critical due to the operations involved. A good example is the air conditioning unit of a car, in Saudi Arabia this is a critical piece of equipment that require deep evaluation, however in Alaska, does not make sense to evaluate the unit. What about the heating system? In this case is the opposite. Does it make sense to have the heating unit in top shape in Saudi Arabia?

During FMEA

Another point of consideration is the extension of a FMEA; it should be focused on the 20% of the assets, failures, spare parts, systems components that will reduce the impact on plant operations an 80%. As a maintenance practitioner for 22 years, following the 20%-80% concept preparing FMEA, has been a time saving tool to spearhead several initiatives including FMEA preparation. I’ve seen resources conducting an FMEA to evaluate an O ring of a solenoid valve, rather than the evaluation of the solenoid as a whole assembly. This lack of practical maintenance knowledge ends up in a waste of time when the cost effective and practical recommendation is to have the whole solenoid in stockroom inventory. So, let’s re-evaluate resources selection and FMEA approach prior commencing the project.

After FMEA

The main purpose of an FMEA is to evaluate your assets to mitigate failure modes based in three main aspects, severity, occurrence and detection of such failure modes. Mitigation plan will be implemented by means of the most adequate maintenance mode as follows:

The outcome of this process is a “waterfall” of recommendations to enhance assets reliability, like inspections, adjustments and spare parts inventory assessments. Evaluation of resources required to implement recommendations coming out from an FMEA should be carefully selected. Feedback from operators on how to conduct TPM inspections or feedback from mechanics on the risk to “run to failure” a pump, are considerations to have while implementing mitigation plans.

The expertise in technologies to be used is another critical element on a successful implementation of FMEA recommendations. Every maintenance practitioner knows that rotating equipment should be inspected / analyzed via vibration studies; however, that expertise is seldom available and should be consulted when a vibration analysis programs are required as part of the mitigation plan.

Finally

Although this article covers simple aspects of FMEA implementation process, such aspects are key elements to assure a proper implementation. The success of a FMEA will be proportional to the expertise of the resources in the maintenance field. Remember that the preparation of and FMEA is just the beginning of the journey to maintenance enhancement. Just assure that the right resources with the right background has been appointed to implement your FMEA.