A Decision Making based Method for Prioritization of Failures in FMEA

This paper proposes a decision making based ranking approach for more efficient prioritization of failure modes in a system Failure Mode and Effects Analysis for corrective actions. The proposed approach can cover some of inherently shortcomings of conventional Risk Priority Number (RPN) method and like. The current prioritization methods have two main deficiencies as: they have not considered indirect relations between components and are deficient for systems with many subsystems or components. The proposed approach called Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) is an effective approach for analyzing relation between components of a system in respect to its type (direct/indirect) and severity. The main advantages of DEMATEL are involving indirect relations in analyze, allocating as possible as unique ranks to alternatives and clustering alternatives in large systems. The demonstrated results have shown that DEMATEL method can be an efficient, complementary and confident approach for reprioritization of failure modes in a FMEA.

Keywords:

Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory , Failure mode and effects analysis , indirect relationship , Prioritization , Risk Priority Number method