FMEA Used in Assessing Warranty Costs

摘要

The article deals with a possibility how to use Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) in assessing warranty costs of repairable products. A proposed procedure is especially suitable for products with a new design when credible information gathered by monitoring of comparable products in service and especially in the warranty period is not available. The article describes a procedure that augments FMEA (FMECA) and, in addition to standard analyzed information, at each failure mode it further evaluates an assumed number of a given type of failure during a warranty period, method of its repair, its labor consumption and costs needed for spare parts and material. It also presents a model that based on these data enables to carry out an estimate of warranty costs of a product as a whole. A method presented facilitates to conduct an estimation of warranty costs already in the initial stages of the product life cycle even when information on the behavior of similar products is missing.