| Abstract: | The greatest benefit is realized from failure mode, effect and criticality analysis (FMECA) when it is done early in the design phase and tracks product changes as they evolve; design changes can then be made more economically than if the problems are discovered after the design has been completed. However, when the discovered design flaws must be prioritized for corrective actions, precise information on their probability of occurrence, the effect of the failure, and their detectability often are not availabe. To solve this problem, this paper described a new method, based on fuzzy sets, for prioritizing failures for corrective actions in a FMCEA. Its successful application to the container crane shows that the proposed method is both reasonable and practical. |
