Case Study: Application of Machinery FMEAs

PlanTech worked with the Powertrain division of an OEM facilitating Machinery Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (MFMEA) on new custom equipment being built for a manufacturing line to produce a new engine.

MFMEA is an analysis of risk, applying conventional FMEA methodology to custom equipment and machinery design. Machinery FMEA's differ from conventional FMEA's because they focus on how Equipment / Machinery / Tooling fails to meet the design intent.

Historically, this division's skilled trade workers were rarely exposed to new equipment during the design and build phase resulting in a heavy reliance on the machine builders service personnel, the operating and spare part manuals usually followed equipment installation by anywhere from 9 to 18 months preventing the ordering of spare parts, since spare parts are not available extensive cannibalization of equipment occurred, equipment rarely performed to specification during launch, most programs did not meet launch timing.

The goal in the engagement was to use the MFMEA to provide education for skilled trade workers on the new equipment and obtain operator and spare part manuals prior to equipment delivery.

The results:

All skilled trade employees were able to participate in the MFMEAs and therefore trained on how to properly maintain the equipment
The facility did not require use of outside service personnel after the warranty period expired
Spare part manuals were prepared and used to document potential causes for the MFMEAs and delivered with the equipment
Recommended spare parts were received with the equipment, therefore, no cannibalization of equipment occurred
The launch was completed on-time incurring the fewest number of equipment-related failures in the plant's history

PlanTech is a division of Omnex Inc.

Omnex is an international consulting, training and software development organization specializing in management system solutions in Quality, Environmental, and Health and Safety standards-based management systems. Omnex also leads the way with Lean, Six Sigma and other breakthrough systems and methods of performance enhancement, supported by Omnex Systems, LLC, software solutions for Enterprise Wide Quality Management Systems®.