• Home
• 
• About Us
• 
• Services
• 
• Contact

When failure is not an option.

Gavin Robbins Consulting specialists in FMEA development and associated quality documentation

A robust Failure Modes & Effects Analysis (FMEA) improves the Quality and Reliability of a design, product, process, or machine

There are many benefits of which a few are:

• Product / Process Robustness and optimisation
• Reduced costs (materials, re-work, late change, recalls etc.)
• Fault / accident prevention
• Customer satisfaction
• Exchange of ideas and knowledge
• Records the intellectual property
• Standardising the approach
• Understanding of the scope, liabilities, limitations and interaction between elements
• Enhances teamwork and cross-functional working relationships
• Focus on each element of the system
• Identification of critical areas of the system
• Costs
  

Cost is one of the most serious aspects of product development. Getting the design or process wrong, or not making a thorough risk analysis, can result in product recall costs, high production waste, safety recalls, or at worse legal proceedings!

There are many product liability cases that can be found in the public domain, where law suits ran into billions, in addition to subsequent product recall costs. Below is the most commonly referenced case:

The 1970’s Ford Pinto had a flaw in it’s design. In nearly all rear-end crash collisions the Pinto's fuel system would rupture extremely easily and burst into flames, whilst the doors would sometimes trap the occupants inside. They had not realised this problem until mass production and did not change the situation due to costs, even though the cost was minimal. A number of law suits followed and Ford was found to be negligent.

(source: The Ford Pinto Case By Douglas Birsch, John H. Fielder)

To bring us up to date: Could Toyota have realised the potential failures of their accelerator pedal mechanism if they had performed Failure Modes & Effects Analysis? or the Faulty breaks in the Prius? The cost of their huge safety recall will no doubt cost in excess of £1bn.

"I wish you had taken measures earlier rather than simply saying it was not a major technical problem," Mr Maehara told Mr Toyoda in a meeting.

(Source: Toyota recalls thousands of Prius cars worldwide - www.bbc.co.uk)

There are a great deal of Product Liability cases in the public domain and we use just a few to exemplify why FMEA and other quality methods are so important. Although our main role is to provide FMEA training we also provide more, so click here to read on..