The quality manager’s response – part two: what are the tools of quality?

Welcome to the second part of our series about quality! We have already discussed what quality’s all about and what the quality-related costs are. This time, quality manager, Jindřich Ryšavý will shed light on what tools quality has to work with and how to avoid mistakes, which subsequently lead to angry customers. Let’s get right down to it!

How can we actually prevent having damaged pieces on a mass scale, how can we prevent customer complaints and finally, how do we prevent angry customers, which could potentially be fatal for companies. FMEA is an age-old tool with a wide range of uses. FMEA stands for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis,” – in other words, it means analysing the causes and consequences of damages or analysing the possibilities of damages occurring and their consequences. So, where did this tool come from? 

We have the dynamic development of astronautics in the 1960s and NASA to thank. NASA developed this tool to help identify significant risks because a malfunctioning space craft or defective module with a crew onboard oftentimes turned out tragically. Henry Ford further developed and expanded this method in the 1870s and one year later, this method was incorporated into the QS9000 Handbook (the benchmark for the American automotive industry). So much for its history. This tool is simply older than most people, who are reading this article 😉. 

How is FMEA used?

As the name itself suggests, this tool should be used before production even begins. This is when it should identify the biggest risks, thus give companies a chance to prevent them by using various measures. By revealing the risks before production begins, companies save a lot of money related to scrap (products that didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to) and avoid complaints. Unfortunately, the process-related and design-related risks can’t be identified, until the customer identifies them as well, because companies can only detect these risks during the course of production.  

Now, let’s get into how to use the actual tool itself. The principle is relatively simple. It’s basically a record of what can go wrong during production and what to do when it goes wrong. It sounds trivial, but it involves tremendous know-how. This is a lot more valuable than the production process itself. We can use FMEA to design our own product and then we have DFMEA – Design FMEA or PFMEA  for the production process– Process FMEA. These are the two most commonly used tools. Nevertheless, we can also use this tool for other opportunities, like changing the design, relocating production, problems with scrap, issues with customer complaints and other similar issues.

The cornerstone of a well-implemented FMEA is a team of experienced workers (production, quality, engineering, maintenance), skilled in production and design, who get together to figure out what can potentially go wrong and how to prevent it. They assess every detected risk using three coefficients – the significance of the defect, the occurrence of the defect and the detection of the defect (the more significant the defect, the more often the defect can occur and the more difficult it is to detect it – the higher the number). The product of these three numbers is then the risk assessment – the risk of error and the related costs. Further details of FMEA are the subjects of specialized courses.

Let’s conclude by saying that FMEA is mostly about experienced people and their ability to detect and assess risks. Then, it’s up to management to decide on how to deal with and resolve these risks.  

Is there anything we did not mention in this article? Do you have any questions? Contact us!