RS 471 Training Seminar
FMEA Facilitation and Application Skills

The RS 471 training seminar uses case study examples to allow attendees to practice FMEA facilitation and application skills. ReliaSoft's Xfmea software is used for data management and reporting.

The training course presents concepts and software tools that you could use to help your organization:

• Proactively consider potential failures, prioritize issues based on risk and then initiate improvements early in development when modifications tend to have the biggest impact for the lowest cost.
• Create a searchable knowledge base of reliability-related information for your designs, which can contribute to the development of test plans, control plans, future design efforts and other activities.
• Comply with supplier or regulatory requirements while promoting analysis and data management processes that are efficient and effective, utilizing lessons learned from past analyses when applicable.

Course Objectives

The objectives for this training course are to help the attendee:

• Learn the key skills needed to facilitate successful meetings and FMEAs.
• Gain experience in preparation for actual FMEAs.
• Gain experience in application of best practice FMEA procedures.
• Learn how to keep FMEA meetings on point and rapidly moving towards the team objectives.

Detailed Course Outline

Effective FMEA Facilitation

• Facilitator’s role
• Neutrality vs. team leadership

Effective Meeting Skills (with hands-on team exercises when applicable)

• Techniques for effective meetings
• Meeting norms

FMEA Facilitation Skills (with hands-on team exercises when applicable)

• The rules of brainstorming
• Asking probing questions
• Encouraging participation
• Understanding personality types: introverts, extroverts and facilitators
• Active listening
• Encouraging or limiting discussion, switching gears
• Handling "war stories"
• Techniques for decision making
• Hallmarks of the consensus process
• Compromise vs. consensus
• Conflict management
• Healthy debates vs. dysfunctional arguments
• Healthy vs. unhealthy techniques
• Managing conflict approaches
• Facilitator interventions
• Managing time during FMEAs
• Common facilitation problems
  • No solution to high risk
  • Meeting going off track
  • Answer is not in room
  • Answer will not be supported

FMEA Facilitation Process (with hands-on team exercises when applicable)

• Determining the scope and timing of the project
• Establishing and training the FMEA team
• Ensuring all pre-work is done before first meeting (ground rules & assumptions, gathering information)
• Performing FMEA analysis up through recommended actions
• Reviewing risk and recommended actions with management
• Executing recommended actions
• Providing linkage with other processes
• Verifying FMEA quality objectives
• Reviewing and approving critical supplier FMEAs
• Verifying risk reduction is achieved

FMEA Facilitator Workshop

• Participants break into FMEA teams in order to complete a full FMEA of a specific product
• "Real world" FMEA supporting material is distributed to teams including:
  • Bill of materials
  • System level boundary diagram
  • Schematics
  • Customer requirements
  • Trade-off analysis
  • Functional/technical specifications
  • Test plans from previous design
  • Field data
  • Reliability block diagram
• Each team sets up an FMEA project in Xfmea
• Each team performs the pre-work steps for the assigned FMEA project
• Each team performs the FMEA, with team members alternating as facilitators and using facilitation skills
• Each team reports progress at stages identified by the instructor
• Each team produces a final FMEA report
• Wrap-up discussion and lessons learned