From static FMEA to data-driven risk analysis for your assets

Every maintenance organization knows the importance of FMEA or FMECA. These analyses form the basis for your maintenance strategy, your inspections and your stock management. The only problem is that they often remain snapshots. Assets behave differently than expected, malfunctions and inspections provide new insights and sensor data show deviations that were never included in the original analysis. Meanwhile, the FMEA, neatly drawn up in Excel, remains unchanged somewhere in a drawer.

What you really need is a risk analysis that remains up-to-date. An analysis that moves with the performance of your assets and helps you make choices that match what is happening in the field.

The ideal picture: an FMEA that continuously moves with your assets

In modern asset management processes, FMEA is no longer a document, but a system function. You want to be able to quickly start a new analysis, with failure modes and degradation mechanisms that suit your type of asset. You want to estimate how critical an asset is based on facts instead of assumptions. And if sensor data, malfunctions or inspections change, you want risks to be updated automatically.

In such an ideal situation, you have one integrated view of performance, degradation and risk. You can see exactly when you need to intervene and when maintenance can wait. Your strategy moves with your assets, continuously, not annually.

Why many FMEAs become outdated and organizations miss risks

FMEAs are usually created once. They are not linked to maintenance data or current performance and are only updated when someone makes time for it. This creates a gap between how you think assets behave and what they actually do.

The result? Maintenance that does not match the risks, unexpected downtime and little grip on reliability. As long as risk analysis is not part of your daily asset management, it will remain primarily a paper exercise.

What you need for an FMEA that is always correct

To make risk analysis part of your operation, you need three things: a good foundation so that you never start from a blank page again, content that matches your asset configuration and a system that automatically updates risks as soon as assets behave differently. Risk analysis then becomes a steering instrument for reliability, safety and cost control.

How IBM MAS and the FMEA Builder keep your risk analysis up-to-date

With the built-in FMEA Builder of IBM Maximo Application Suite, creating an FMEA is a piece of cake, instead of a days-long study. You start an analysis by describing your asset. IBM MAS compares your input with supplied equipment libraries, branch templates and best practices and offers you a suitable starting point: the basis for your FMEA is immediately laid. The system then asks targeted questions for the refinement of the model, to make the analysis suitable for your context. What is the engine type, for example, or the voltage?

IBM MAS then automatically generates functions, failure modes, causes, effects and detectability. The tool links these to degradation mechanisms such as thermal overload, bearing wear, corrosion or hydraulic blockages. This gives you a strong, consistent FMEA in a short time, which is suitable for new assets and for sharpening existing analyses.

The biggest difference arises afterwards: your FMEA becomes part of a closed loop. Failure data, maintenance results and sensor measurements are continuously processed in your risk scores. If an asset starts vibrating differently, the assessment of failure changes immediately. IBM MAS can even automatically create a work order when necessary. Your maintenance strategy therefore moves with reality, automatically and substantiated, without extra manual work.

What a data-driven FMEA means for your maintenance strategy

Plan – Operate – Optimize: your FMEA affects all parts of your asset life cycle management in IBM MAS. Risk analysis becomes an ongoing process, instead of a separate document. Your strategy is better substantiated, less dependent on scarce expert knowledge and better aligned with the performance of your installations. You prevent surprises and unnecessary maintenance, while everyone works with the same information, directly linked to your asset structure and work orders. It makes your FMEA an operational steering instrument within your asset management, a way to keep risks, reliability and costs under control at all times.

Want to discuss how you can make your FMEA part of your maintenance strategy? Contact Stefan Hoffmanns via +31 (0)6 41 56 16 32 or s.hoffmanns@gemba.nl.