Consider a rather large project that like so many projects had some difficulties. The project team had a major component (subsystem) delivered from a supplier. The supplier has one set of processes and the customer organization another. This supplier delivers multiple versions of this major subsystem. The customer integrates this subsystem into the larger system […]

People in education often like to implement “programs.” In fact, we call this syndrome “program-itis” because it leads to inflammation of the budget. As with many corporation, we see people who want to improve a situation decide to follow “best practices” without verifying that these are, in fact, best practices. They can only be best […]

We have been on a bit a tear (or rant) about FMEAs. We suggest the FMEA documentation is part of the core of a design process. The ultimate approach we have seen is that of Michael Anleitner (The Power of Deduction: Failure Modes and Effects Analysis for Design, Quality Press, 2010), which uses functional analysis […]

There is only one way to describe this scenario and that is via a story.  Consider the organization that is coming to the end of the project.  The product is a complicated subassembly that goes into a larger system and has numerous interactions and incarnations of the design.  They are late in the delivery of […]

We submit that a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) review is a form of design review. After all, one of the purposes of a design review is to try and remove defects before they appear in the product and that is the entire rationale for the FMEA in the first place. Yet, most of […]

Risks can have origins in communications and are not the sole province of the stakeholders and sponsors of the project. Sometimes the organization damages itself via the structure.  We are all familiar with the functional organization, often referred to as a line organization or stove pipe organization in which we group the company by discipline. […]

This blog post is born out of a response to the Named Risk post from Ed Arnold on www.LinkedIn.com.   He left the reply below: In my experience, a lot of time/effort is wasted when project owners change. The knowledge gets lost, even if they leave their spreadsheets and power points behind. The answer: a collaborative […]

We addressed the issue of the modular FMEA in a previous blog. We also suggest that the FMEA in its various guises is also a great place to capture lessons learned. In the medical, aerospace, automotive, and food industries, some kind of FMEA is a required document. Since we already must create these documents, why […]

A modular FMEA is a modification of the standard Failure Mode and Effects Analysis tool into meaningful components. For example, we can select “stepper motor” as a component of a typical instrument cluster used in the dashboards of truck and autos. We would then create our FMEA to deal with all issues related specifically the […]