Failure Modes and Effects Analysis: An Evaluation of Group versus Individual Performance

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Guerrero, Hector H.; Bradley, James R.
• 署名单位: William & Mary
• 刊物名称: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1059-1478
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1937-5956.2012.01363.x
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 1524-1539
• 关键词: FMEA; risk analysis; virtual groups; product design; distributed product development

摘要

Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is one of the most frequently used tools in process and product design: it is used in quality and reliability planning, and event and failure mode analysis. It has a long history of use and is a formally prescribed procedure by a number of prominent standards organizations. In addition, it's popular use has evolved as a less formal and widely interpreted tool in the area of Lean/Six Sigma (LSS) process improvement. This paper investigates one of the most important issues related to FMEA practicethe quality of individual vs. group performance in ranking failure modes. In particular, we compare FMEA rankings generated by: (i) individuals, (ii) group consensus, and (iii) non-collaborative aggregation of group input (a synthesized group ranking). We find that groups outperform individuals and that synthetic groups perform as well as group consensus. We explain the implications of this result on the coordination of the design of products and processes amongst distributed organizations. The increasing distribution of product design efforts, both in terms of geography and different organizations, presents an opportunity to improve coordination using distributed synthetic group-based FMEA.