Design or Process FMEA?

Similar principles and steps are followed for both design and process FMEAs.

Design-FMEAs

The primary objective of a Design-FMEA is to uncover potential failures associated with the product that could cause:

• Product malfunctions.
• Shortened product life.
• Safety hazards while using the product.

Design-FMEAs should be used throughout the design process—from preliminary design until the product goes into production.

Process-FMEAs

Process-FMEAs uncover potential failures that can:

• Impact product quality.
• Reduce process reliability.
• Cause customer dissatisfaction.
• Create safety or environmental hazards.

Ideally, Process-FMEAs should be conducted prior to start-up of a new process, but they can be conducted on existing processes as well.