akarshbn

Most of the times, the idea will be to reduce RPN number by addressing any of the S, O or D. The limitation of RPN is that it does not specify which of the factors has more weightage. It is not a weighted value in true sense. As an example, during FMEA review of a parameter if the person / people working on it decide to give ratings of 8 for S, 5 for O and 1 for D, the multiplication still results in a low number of 40. In most organizations, RPN above 100 is considered as priority. In this case, Irrespective of having high severity and 50% probability of occurrence, this parameter may not be addressed at all. The 2nd limitation is that occurrence and detection of a fault is downstream in a process which means that though the fault exists, the question of addressing the fault is pushed to the downstream process to handle it. For example, in DFMEA of a component, O and D of a fault is pushed to manufacturing or field to manage it. In PFMEA of a mfg process, O and D is left to end of line quality check. It should in fact point to the process for weeding out or addressing the fault instead of pushing the fault detection downstream.

Inventory is stock of products either in finished, partially finished or unfinished form that is primarily meant to reduce to loss of business due to stock-out or long lead-times of procurement or manufacturing, reduce cost of reordering when ordered through Economic Order Quantity and enable easy availability of products as required for further use. In my view, inventory is applicable only for industries which produce a tangible product. A service industry cannot have inventory w.r.t the service offered.

My take: customer complaint handling process is good. However, they can improve on proactiveness - 1. Indicate shelf life period for perishable products so that the customer knows how long they could keep it, 2. Offer the customer 2 options - either a refund or delivering the product itself to the customer's place

FOR: zero defect can be achieved. It starts with definition of zero defect. Voice of Customer, field problems, capability of process (service or manufacturing), etc determine what is acceptable level of defect (with tolerances) & what is not and this forms the basis of definition of zero defect. It also depends on whether the user or customer recognises the defect or impacted by it. If not, it is as good as zero defect for a product or service or result.