Abstract

In design failure mode and effects analysis, designers expose potential weaknesses and game out failures in the product before the product goes into production. The process first explores each component in the design, detailing its functions and deciding everywhere and every way the component could fail. Assigning causes and consequences for each helps position where interventions are necessary. It also gives designers the opportunity to determine the severity of consequences associated with each potential failure and the magnitude of each resulting point of risk. By the end of the analysis, each failure receives a risk priority number, calculated based on different measures of its importance and used to determine the order in which each failure is to be eliminated or mitigated.