It is difficult to fathom how many terabytes of data concerning the BP oil spill will accumulate by the time this disaster eventually comes to a close, or how many lives and livelihoods are being affected by the decisions, or lack of decisions, made by the oil industry experts.

As lean six sigma consultants and practitioners, there are numerous proven tools and techniques available to us for analyzing and improving processes with an emphasis on being preventive and proactive rather than reactive. Each time a catastrophic event occurs we question why this wasn’t prevented and did any of the so-called experts even anticipate this. The Toyota accelerator issue and countless other product recalls also fit into this category.

Among improvement tools is the “Failure Mode and Effects Analysis”, or FMEA, which is designed for anticipating all possible types of failure in product and process designs. Inherent in the FMEA are three elements used to assess risks associated with the problem including severity, probability of occurrence, and likelihood of detection. Each element is scored on a scale of 1 to 10 and the three elements are then multiplied resulting in a product of 1 to 1,000. This total, known as a Risk Priority Number (RPN), allows for prioritizing problem solving tasks and implementing preventive actions.

Assuming someone within the BP organization, or any other oil company, conducted an FMEA on the problem of a deep water oil leak it would be easy to see why minimal concern may have existed. Although the severity of such a situation would most likely score a 10 due to its catastrophic nature, the probability of occurrence and detection would be rated low when considering there are thousands of offshore oil wells operating globally without failure and oil leaks are quite noticeable. The resulting RPN could be easy to dismiss.

Considering this probable scenario, and in the interest of continuous improvement, maybe it’s time to rethink the FMEA. Imagine the impact if potential cost per event and financial harm to an organization’s reputation, goodwill and stakeholders were included in the calculation. The resulting RPN could drive a change of thinking throughout an organization especially since the results will be in the language of management, which is money.

Another issue to consider as teams prepare a FMEA is that a majority of involved parties typically have a vested interest in the product or process design. The resulting influence of paradigms and groupthink can be a limiting factor. Overcoming this requires facilitation, unbiased input, freewheel brainstorming and asking the outrageous “what if” questions. Upon completion the FMEA provides a clearer understanding of “poka-yoke”, or error proofing, opportunities for preventing causes of defects.

The fact is we live and work in reactionary environments where it is easier to beg forgiveness than delay progress, especially if the delay results in additional expense. Considering this, isn’t it time to advocate the effective use of FMEA while promoting error prevention throughout your organization?

As W. Edwards Deming stated, “the knowledge required to change the existing system to a better system must come from outside the existing system.” His logic remains sound as resources well beyond BP’s organizational structure attempt to resolve this crisis.

Has your organization modified the FMEA format in order to better understand and quantify risk? Is failure mode and effects analysis supported as an effective method for improving your operational excellence? If so, please visit Our Blog and share your experiences and results.

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If you have a topic that you would like addressed, or an Insight you would like to pass along, e-mail us at: Jack.Rink@rmdonovan.com

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