What are the Key Differences Between a Product Design FMEA and a Machinery FMEA?
Product Design FMEAs are intended for high production systems/subsystems and components.
Prototype or surrogate part testing is used to verify design intent.
Machinery FMEAs are used for relatively low volume designs, where statistical failure data on prototypes is not practical to be obtained by the manufacturer.
Machinery FMEAs are targeted for long-term, repetitive cycles, where wear out is a prime consideration. For example, machinery running at two 10-hour shifts per day, 50 weeks per year, will accumulate 120,000 hours of operation in twenty years. This would be equivalent to a vehicle being driven 600,000 miles at an average speed of 50 mph.
The severity, occurrence, and detection tables used are tailored to meet the needs of the machinery design engineer in order to maintain a standard interpretation across a wide variety of machinery designs.
What are the Similarities Between a Product Design FMEA and a Machinery FMEA?
Both emphasize operator/passenger safety as the first consideration of the design.
Both emphasize robustness in designs to prevent problems before they occur.
Both use 1-10 ranking scales for calculating Risk Priority Numbers.
Both emphasize taking corrective actions based first on severity and then on overall RPN .
Both use a standardized form to document the FMEA analysis.
