What is the primary purpose of conducting a FMECA?

The primary purpose of conducting a Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) is to determine risks, the likelihood of failure, and necessary mitigation steps. This systematic approach helps organizations identify potential failure modes of a system or process, assess the impact of these failures, and prioritize them based on their severity and frequency.

Through this analysis, teams can evaluate how a failure might affect performance, safety, and reliability and implement strategies to reduce or eliminate these risks. The focus on both the likelihood of failures and their consequences allows organizations to make informed decisions regarding maintenance planning and resource allocation, ultimately enhancing overall asset reliability.

In contrast, while designing new products, assigning financial value to risks, or evaluating the performance of existing systems are all important activities in reliability engineering, they do not encapsulate the core objective of FMECA. FMECA specifically targets the identification and analysis of failure modes and their criticality, making the third option the most accurate representation of its primary purpose.