Abstract
The analysis technique, Process Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is normally used to analyze manufacturing and assembly processes at the system, subsystem or component levels. FMEA has been used in many quality management systems. This type of FMEA focuses primarily on potential failure modes of the process that are caused by manufacturing or assembly process deficiencies. The goals of the FMEA analysis is to reduce the errors occurred in the design process, to shorten the development duration, to reduce the development costs, to increase safety in operation and product reliability. This paper presents an application of the tool process failure mode effect and criticality analysis to the production process in the automotive industry; the potential problems are identified and are proposed some improvements.
Keywords: Continuous quality improvement, failure modes and effects analysis, automotive industry, risk priority number (RPN)