FMECA - Medium

The constant concern of maintenance managers is to provide their internal customers with hours of trouble-free production. Once a performance gap has been identified (non-availability, non-quality), the maintenance manager must consider actions aimed at eradicating malfunctions.

FMEA (Failure Mode, Effect and Criticality Analysis) is a methodological tool for the systematic analysis of potential malfunctions in a product, process or installation. This approach provides a rigorous framework for group work, bringing together the skills and experience of all those involved in improving a company's performance. FMECA enables the company's resources to be mobilized around a common concern: improving the availability of the production tool.

The FMECA method was originally used to address the potential risks inherent in nuclear weapons production. Gradually, it was adapted to all high-risk activities (civil nuclear; aeronautics, space; major works), then integrated into industrial projects. Today, it is widely used in the industrial world, either to improve existing systems, or to preventively address potential causes of non-performance in new products, processes or production resources.

The use of FMECA may seem tedious, but the gains it enables are very often far greater than the implementation efforts it suggests. Implementing FMECA offers an additional guarantee of improved performance for the industrial company. Its use very early on in the design phase (of the product, process or production tool) reveals the company's willingness to anticipate potential problems rather than suffer the consequences down the line.