Integration of process FMEA with product and process design based on key characteristics

Abstract

It was investigated that most product faults typically originate in the development and planning stages and around 80% of faults remains undetected until final test or when the product was in use. For complex products such as aircraft and automobiles, Key Characteristics (KCs) play a significant role in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and in integrated product development. Organisations can concentrate their attention on those "critical few" product characteristics during their product and process design and production. Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is recognized as a powerful tool for planning and improving quality and reliability during product development. The effectiveness of FMEA implementation is heavily reliant on the reuse of FMEA knowledge and the integration of FMEA with product and process design. However, FMEA has disadvantages in that: (1) the benefits of implementing FMEA are almost counteracted by tedious procedures and high costs as organizations and personnel try to analyse all product functions and characteristics in detail; (2) it is not well integrated with computer aided product development systems or tools including CAD and CAPP (Computer Aided Process Planning). This paper proposes a novel approach to effectively utilizing FMEA knowledge during product and process design by establishing an integration framework and model and by realizing timely KCs-driven failures analysis and prevention. The integrated framework adopts Web-based process FMEA as the knowledge service to close the loop of product development and production including process design, process planning, verification and validation as well as production. The proposed integrated process and information model is able to link with the product, process model and resource model. During product design and process planning, key characteristics are used as the main drivers for FMEA knowledge query and feedback. The correction or improvement actions from FMEA can be used to update the designing product model and process plan. A web-based and service-oriented process FMEA tool has been developed, and the integration effectiveness has been validated by a case study from aerospace industry. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.