FMEA Builder
Build a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis by identifying credible failure modes, assessing severity, occurrence and detection, prioritising treatment, and comparing baseline with residual risk after actions.
Move from failure description to prioritised, actionable risk treatment.
FMEA is a structured bottom-up analysis of potential failure modes, their effects and causes. Severity, occurrence and detection ratings can support prioritisation, but the resulting Risk Priority Number (RPN) should not be treated as a universal measure of risk.
This builder uses a fictional thermal-control subsystem to identify failure modes, score them, select recommended actions and compare baseline with residual risk after treatment.
FMEA Builder — Step by Step
Eight stages establish the subsystem context, select failure modes, assess severity, occurrence and detection, define treatment actions, apply the actions as a change challenge and conclude with a management risk view.
Failure Modes, Effects, Ratings and Residual Risk
Reveal the subsystem context to begin.
Review failure mode, effect, cause/control assumptions, ratings, RPN and recommended treatment.
Explore FMEA Sensitivity Without Changing the Guided FMEA
Adjust severity, occurrence and detection for an isolated failure mode and observe the resulting RPN. Experiment Mode is isolated from the guided FMEA.
Test your FMEA judgement.
FMEA cues
Failure Mode
The manner in which an item, function or process can fail to meet its intended requirement.
Effect
The local, next-higher-level or system consequence of the failure mode.
Severity
A rating of consequence if the failure occurs. Severity is not reduced merely because detection is strong.
Occurrence
A rating of the expected frequency or likelihood of the cause/failure under the adopted scale.
Detection
In this illustrative scale, a higher detection rating means poorer detectability. Always verify the organisation's adopted scale.
RPN
Risk Priority Number = Severity × Occurrence × Detection. Use it as a prioritisation aid, not the sole risk decision rule.
FMEA creates value when ratings lead to specific actions and residual risk is reviewed afterwards.
Prioritise severe and weakly controlled failure modes even when simple RPN ranking would otherwise hide them.