PFMEA Approval Process

Does anybody have had any experience on some process to approve a PFMEA? I mean, after the PFMEA has been created, is there a protocol to approve it? please share any experience will be appreciated.

 

We develop a PPAP document depending upon the OEM customer. If it is a level 4 PPAP we do not have to submit to the customer unless they ask for it. I have also submitted Level 4 PPAPS to FIAT which they approved by their signature in the PSW. My suggestion is that you look at customer specific requirements to see if you need to submit the PFMEA (part of the PPAP docs).

 

Our company has designated the PFMEA as proprietary. We send the first page with the level 3 PPAP and a statement that full PFMEA is available for an onsite review.

 

The main thing you have to care about is the cotation of failure mods, you have to check the correspondance between what is done and whats is required bu the customer. You have to check if the critical characteristics have been identified is the PFMEA.

 

When I approve them I look for a few things.

1) Does it match the process flow diagram for sequence of operations?
2) Does it make sense (the supplier typically is the subject matter expert, so this winds up being me asking clarifying questions and not really rejecting anything).
3) I review the scores for Occurrence, Detection, and Severity and look at the high ones in each category.
4) I review the RPN - same thing - look at the high ones.
5) If 3&4 are high enough, I look at the action plan out to the right to sanity check it.
6) I make sure it captures all key characteristics on my print.

Other than that, there's not much involved in an approval. It's ok to have "bad things" on it. That's the point - to identify risks.

 

Just to add with ncwalker's list of things to check. I attached our FMEA workshop output checklist for your reference.