ENBIS: European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics

Robust Design Methodology for Reliability Exploring the Effects of Variation and Uncertainty

22 September 2009, 11:40 – 12:10

Abstract

Submitted by

Sara Lorén

Authors

Sara Lorén, Thomas Svensson, Jacques de Maré, and Bo Bergman

Affiliation

FCC, SP, and Chalmers

Abstract

The Failure Mode and Effect Analysis, FMEA, is often used in industry for reliability assessments. Studies of FMEA have indicated that the failure modes are trigged by unwanted variation. As a complement, or possibly, as a replacement of FMEA we suggest an enhancement of that technique what we call Variation Mode and Effect Analysis, VMEA. The VMEA takes the quantitative measures of failure causes into account. The VMEA method is presented at three levels of complexity, basic, enhanced and probabilistic. The basic VMEA can be used when we only have vague knowledge of the variation. The sensitivity and variation size assessments are made by engineering judgement and are usually made on a 1-10 scale. When we can better judge the sources of variation the enhanced VMEA can be used. The probabilistic VMEA can be used in the later design stages where we have more detailed information in terms of for example material data, finite element models, and physical experiments. The different sources assign measures by means of the statistical variance.

(Abstract for a Poster)

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