What can go wrong, how bad would it be, and would you notice in time? The FMEA turns these questions into one number per risk. Watch the short video, then work with the toolkit PDF: it explains the method, shows a worked example and gives you a blank template to fill in.
Tool video
The short tool video will appear here.
FMEA in short
- Scope and team. Process (PFMEA) or design (DFMEA)? Bring a cross-functional team.
- List steps and failure modes. For each step: how could it fail?
- Rate S, O, D. Severity of the effect, Occurrence of the cause, Detection by current controls. 1 to 10 each.
- Calculate the RPN. S × O × D. Sort from highest to lowest.
- Act and re-score. Actions for the top RPNs (often above 125), owner and date, then rate again.
Key points
- RPN = Severity × Occurrence × Detection.
- Each rated 1 to 10.
- Highest RPN first, high severity always.
- Re-score after the action.