Risk evaluation in failure mode and effects analysis using fuzzy weighted geometric mean

Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) has been extensively used for examining potential failures in products, processes, designs and services. An important issue of FMEA is the determination of risk priorities of the failure modes that have been identified. The traditional FMEA determines the risk priorities of failure modes using the so-called risk priority numbers (RPNs), which require the risk factors like the occurrence (O), severity (S) and detection (D) of each failure mode to be precisely evaluated. This may not be realistic in real applications. In this paper we treat the risk factors O, S and D as fuzzy variables and evaluate them using fuzzy linguistic terms and fuzzy ratings. As a result, fuzzy risk priority numbers (FRPNs) are proposed for prioritization of failure modes. The FRPNs are defined as fuzzy weighted geometric means of the fuzzy ratings for O, S and D, and can be computed using alpha-level sets and linear programming models. For ranking purpose, the FRPNs are defuzzified using centroid defuzzification method, in which a new centroid defuzzification formula based on alpha-level sets is derived. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the potential applications of the proposed fuzzy FMEA and the detailed computational process of the FRPNs. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.