Risk assessment based on hybrid FMEA framework by considering decision maker's psychological behavior character

Abstract As a proactive risk analysis technique, the failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) has been widely utilized to assure the reliability and safety of various fields. However, the conventional FMEA model possess several drawbacks such as overlooking FMEA team member’s psychological behavior, uncertainty and interaction relationships among risk indicators. In this paper, we develop a hybrid FMEA framework integrating TODIM (an acronym in Portuguese of Interactive and Multi-criteria Decision Making) approach and Choquet integral method to contribute to these research gaps. In this framework, the generalized trapezoidal fuzzy numbers are adopted to depict the uncertainty in risk evaluation. Then, an improved GTrFN-WAA (weighted arithmetic averaging operator of GTrFN) operator based on similarity measure is constructed to aggregate risk evaluation information for FMEA team member. This aggregation method can takes into account different types of risk evaluation information. Next, the extended TODIM method with Choquet integral is developed to determine risk priority of each failure mode. This method can simulate the psychological behavior of FMEA team members and model interaction relationships among risk indicators. Finally, a practical example of FMEA problem is presented to demonstrate the application and feasibility of the proposed hybrid FMEA framework, and comparison and sensitivity studies are also conducted to validate the effectiveness of the improved risk assessment approach.