History
Procedures for conducting FMECA were described in US Armed Forces Military Procedures document MIL-P-1629 (1949; revised in 1980 as MIL-STD-1629A). By the early 1960s, contractors for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) were using variations of FMECA or FMEA under a variety of names. NASA programs using FMEA variants included Apollo, Viking, Voyager, Magellan, Galileo, and Skylab. The civil aviation industry was an early adopter of FMEA, with the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) publishing ARP926 in 1967. After two revisions, ARP926 has been replaced by ARP4761, which is now broadly used in civil aviation.
During the 1970s, use of FMEA and related techniques spread to other industries. In 1971 NASA prepared a report for the U.S. Geological Survey recommending the use of FMEA in assessment of offshore petroleum exploration. A 1973 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report described the application of FMEA to wastewater treatment plants. FMEA as application for HACCP on the Apollo Space Program moved into the food industry in general.
Use of FMEA by the automotive industry had began by the mid 1970s. The Ford Motor Company introduced FMEA to the automotive industry for safety and regulatory consideration after the Pinto affair. Ford applied the same approach to processes (PFMEA) to consider potential process induced failures prior to launching production. In 1993 the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) first published an FMEA standard for the automotive industry. It is now in its fourth edition. The SAE first published related standard J1739 in 1994. This standard is also now in its fourth edition.
Although initially developed by the military, FMEA methodology is now extensively used in a variety of industries including semiconductor processing, food service, plastics, software, and healthcare. It is integrated into the AIAG Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) process to provide risk mitigation, in both product and process development phases. Each potential cause must be considered for its effect on the product or process and, based on the risk, actions are determined and risks revisited after actions are complete. Toyota has taken this one step further with its Design Review Based on Failure Mode (DRBFM) approach. The method is now supported by the American Society for Quality which provides detailed guides on applying the method.
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