Enhancing FMEA assessment by integrating grey relational analysis and the decision making trial and evaluation laboratory approach

Abstract Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is used widely to improve product quality and system reliability, employing a risk priority number (RPN) to assess the influence of failures. The RPN is a product of three indicators—severity (S), occurrence (O), and detection (D)—on a numerical scale from 1 to 10. However, the traditional RPN method has been criticized for its four chief shortcomings: its (1) high duplication rate; (2) assumption of equal importance of S, O, and D; (3) not following the ordered weighted rule; and (4) failure to consider the direct and indirect relationships between failure modes (FMs) and causes of failure (CFs). To resolve these drawbacks, we propose a novel approach, integrating grey relational analysis (GRA) and the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method, to rank the risk of failure, wherein the GRA is used to modify RPN values to lower duplications and the ordered weighted rule is followed; then, the DEMATEL method is applied to examine the direct and indirect relationships between FMs and CFs, giving higher priority when a single CF causes FMs to occur multiple times. Finally, an actual case of the TFT-LCD cell process is presented to verify the effectiveness of our method compared with other methods in providing decision-makers more reasonable reference information.