The Psychology of Quality and More

Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)

Criticality is a measure of importance that can be applied both to failure modes and to effects, allowing prioritization of remedial actions. A simple way of measuring failure mode criticality is to use the likelihood that it will occur in a given period. The criticality of a failure effect is often measured as the likelihood of that effect occurring due to any failure mode (although different approaches use different variants on how to measure criticality).

Criticality may be further refined by also taking into account any other items which are considered to be important, such as severity of failure or chance of discovery by a customer.

Taking this extra step is performing Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis, or FMECA, although this often still referred to simply as FMEA.

See also:

Toolbook chapter: Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)