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Abstract
Purpose - The aim of this research was to call attention to the implementation of failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) in a collaborative environment, the issues occurred in the implementation process, and a tool that can be used by all parties in a collaborative environment for FMEA process.
Design/methodology/approach - The discussion includes the procedure of an integrated FMEA approach, how to implement the procedure in a supply chain, and the common problems occurred in its implementation in automotive industry under a collaborative environment.
Findings - The research provided an example of inconsistency in the ranking of severity, occurrence, and detection to show that the inconsistency may delay FMEA implementation in a supply chain.
Originality/value - This study offered guidelines for manufacturing industry in correcting the problems in FMEA applications, so companies can adopt their FMEA process into a collaborative supply chain environment. This paper also demonstrated a Microsoft EXCEL-based tool that can ease the FMEA process in a collaborative environment for determining sampling size, reliability and confidence level for tests in design verification and control plan as a part of integrated FMEA process.
Keywords Failure modes and effects analysis, Supply chain management
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The ultimate goal of a company is to please customers and obtain a good profit margin by gaining market shares. It is a common knowledge that a company needs to assure its product quality, on-time delivery and competitive cost in order to survive in the recent global market. To assure high product quality, most companies establish and implement a quality system within their own sites and, in the meanwhile, require their suppliers to do the same. Unfortunately, their quality system may not be efficient and comprehensive enough to lessen the costs of inspection, defect, rework and correction among all participants in a supply chain. A quality system often does not work well in the entire product life cycle if companies ignore the reliability management process in the earlier stage of product design. To avoid this potential problem, companies often implemented both design and process failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to improve the reliability and quality of their products, to correct potential problems, and, often, to satisfy ISO/TS 16949, QS 9000 and ISO 9000...