Understanding FMEA variants

FMEA variants are customized versions of master FMEAs reusing and adapting proven FMEAs for similar products or processes. This approach helps to maintain consistency in risk assessment approaches while saving time and effort in FMEA development.

To understand how variants work in practice, consider a master FMEA for a standard air filter design. You can create variants of this FMEA for different vehicle models. Each variant inherits the basic failure modes and controls from the master while allowing customization of specific attributes like customer requirements or product-specific considerations. This way, you maintain consistency in your quality processes while accommodating unique product needs.

Teamcenter provides a default configuration for creating FMEA variants and a default configuration for comparing FMEA variants with their masters.

If your organization has custom FMEA requirements, you can customize how variants work by modifying attribute inheritance, team information handling, and variant comparison settings.

You can plan your FMEA variant implementation strategy, configure how FMEA variants are created, and configure how FMEA variants are compared at your site.