Somewhere on your site sits an FMEA spreadsheet last updated in 2019. The person who scored the ratings has moved on. Half the failure modes now score wrongly because the asset has aged, the control has been replaced, or failure history has reshaped what "occurrence" is. That's the fundamental weakness of static FMEA: the risk picture drifts out of alignment with the field. Oxmaint keeps FMEA live — scoring fed by real work-order data, failure modes tied to the asset, mitigations traceable to the maintenance plan. Book a demo to see live FMEA workflows in action.
S
Severity
How bad is the effect?
1 = no effect
10 = safety / regulatory
×
O
Occurrence
How often does it happen?
1 = essentially never
10 = inevitable
×
D
Detection
Will controls catch it?
1 = certain detection
10 = no detection
=
RPN
1 - 1,000
Risk Priority Number
Worked example — corroded shaft bearing on line 2 pump: S=8 (line stop), O=4 (twice a year), D=6 (spotted only at PM) → RPN = 192 · Priority action tier
AIAG-VDA Action Priority — Why Raw RPN Isn't the Whole Story
Modern FMEA practice moved beyond ranking by raw RPN. The AIAG-VDA 2019 Handbook introduced Action Priority (H/M/L) — a lookup based on the combination of S, O and D that always weights high-severity items regardless of occurrence or detection. The reason: two failure modes with identical RPN (say, 120) can carry radically different real-world risk. A missed weld at S=10, O=1, D=1 scores just 10 by RPN — but it's a safety failure that must be acted on. Action Priority fixes this by treating severity as the dominant factor, not just one of three equal terms.
Action Priority Lookup — Simplified View
Severity 9-10
H
H
H
Safety/regulatory → always High priority regardless of O and D
Severity 7-8
M
H
H
Serious functional loss → priority scales with occurrence & detection
Severity 4-6
L
M
M
Moderate impact → occurrence & detection dominate the priority
Severity 1-3
L
L
M
Minor effect → generally low priority, monitor only
Low O & D
Med O & D
High O & D
The 10-Step FMEA Workflow — How Analysis Actually Gets Done
A structured FMEA follows a consistent 10-step sequence aligned with the AIAG-VDA Handbook. Skipping any step produces the same result: an incomplete analysis that misses failure modes, misranks priorities or fails to close the loop with corrective action. Oxmaint's digital workflow enforces every step and links the outputs directly to the CMMS — so mitigations become work orders and control effectiveness feeds back into the next scoring cycle.
01
Scope Definition
Identify the asset, sub-system or process being analysed. Define boundaries. Undefined scope drifts and never concludes.
02
Team Assembly
Design, process, maintenance, quality, ops, safety. Cross-functional expertise closes the failure-mode gaps.
03
Function Mapping
What is this asset/component supposed to do? Failure is deviation from function, so the function has to be defined.
04
Failure Modes
Enumerate every way the function can fail. Historical data (FRACAS, warranty, work orders) beats intuition here.
05
Effects Analysis
Trace consequences at local, sub-system and end-user levels. Effects drive severity scoring.
06
Causes Identification
Root causes for each failure mode. Multiple causes are common — score each independently.
07
Existing Controls
Current prevention (stops cause) and detection (catches failure) controls per cause. Determines the D score.
08
Score S · O · D
Rate 1-10 on each factor using published anchor tables. Ratings must be defensible from actual data.
09
RPN & Action Priority
Calculate RPN (S×O×D) and derive AIAG-VDA Action Priority (H/M/L). Prioritise mitigation on both.
10
Actions & Re-score
Assign corrective actions → generate work orders → re-score after implementation. FMEA is a living document.
See Live FMEA in Action
Walk through the FMEA builder, failure-mode libraries per asset class, S/O/D scoring with AIAG-VDA anchor tables, Action Priority calculation, corrective action → work order linkage, and re-scoring against actual maintenance history — configured against your real assets. Thirty minutes with the Oxmaint team.
Static Spreadsheet vs Live FMEA — What Actually Changes
The gap between traditional FMEA and CMMS-integrated FMEA isn't cosmetic — it's about whether the analysis reflects reality. The comparison below shows the six most consequential differences between an Excel FMEA sitting in a shared folder and a live FMEA inside the maintenance system.
STATIC SPREADSHEET
The traditional Excel FMEA
Occurrence dataTeam's memory of past failures
Update cadenceAnnual review — often deferred
Version controlMultiple copies, unclear latest
ActionsColumn in the sheet, no owner
Feedback loopNone — mitigation success invisible
Asset linkText reference in a column
LIVE FMEA IN CMMS
Oxmaint FMEA workflow
Occurrence dataActual work-order failure counts
Update cadenceContinuous — triggers on new failures
Version controlSingle source of truth, full history
ActionsGenerate work orders with owner & SLA
Feedback loopPost-action re-score against real data
Asset linkHard-linked to asset record & failure history
The result: FMEA stops being an audit artefact and becomes the reliability programme's operating record. Sign up free to move your FMEA off spreadsheets.
Expert Perspective — Where FMEA Programmes Actually Fail
"
Most FMEA programmes don't fail at the analysis stage — they fail at the follow-through. The team meets, scores every failure mode, agrees the actions, and everyone leaves the room feeling good. Six months later half the actions haven't happened, the ones that did aren't documented, and nobody has re-scored anything. The FMEA becomes a compliance artefact rather than a live reliability tool. What separates the sites where FMEA actually works is not better scoring or a fancier template — it's the closed loop: every mitigation becomes a work order with an owner and a due date, work order completion is visible in the FMEA, and re-scoring happens automatically against the new failure history. That discipline, sustained over years, is where the real reliability gains come from.
01
Occurrence anchored in data
Occurrence score pulled from actual work-order failure counts — not team intuition, not gut feel.
02
Both RPN and Action Priority
Traditional RPN plus AIAG-VDA 2019 Action Priority (H/M/L) — high-severity items always surface.
03
Actions become work orders
Every mitigation generates a WO with owner, SLA and evidence capture. Nothing sits as an idea.
04
Automatic re-scoring
Post-mitigation, FMEA re-scores from new failure history. Effectiveness measured, not assumed.
FMEA and RCM — How They Actually Fit Together
FMEA and Reliability-Centred Maintenance (RCM) are frequently confused. FMEA is the analytical technique that identifies and scores failure modes. RCM is the maintenance strategy framework that uses FMEA output — plus asset criticality, failure consequence classification and maintenance-task selection logic — to decide the right maintenance response for each failure mode: predictive, preventive, run-to-failure or redesign. In practice, FMEA is the input and RCM is the decision engine. Oxmaint supports both — the FMEA module generates the failure-mode library that the RCM decision logic then routes into the right maintenance plan per asset. Sign up free to see how FMEA feeds RCM decisions.
Who Uses Oxmaint for FMEA
The platform is used by the specific UK reliability and quality roles that own failure-mode analysis: reliability engineers running site-wide FMEA programmes across mixed asset bases, maintenance managers scoring and prioritising failure modes on production-critical equipment, quality managers running PFMEA on manufacturing processes under IATF 16949 or ISO 9001, safety engineers reviewing high-severity failure modes against control adequacy, engineering teams designing new equipment with DFMEA input, continuous improvement teams targeting RPN reduction as a measurable KPI, and asset managers using FMEA output to justify capex replacement decisions on chronically underperforming equipment. Sign up free to configure FMEA for your reliability team.
Getting FMEA Live
Deployment starts with importing existing FMEA spreadsheets — Oxmaint parses standard templates and migrates failure modes, scoring and controls into the digital workflow. Asset linkage is established during import; each failure mode ties to the specific asset or asset class it applies to. AIAG-VDA anchor tables for S/O/D scoring configure at site level. Occurrence scores back-populate from historical work-order data where available — often revealing that legacy occurrence scores were significantly under- or over-rated. Corrective action templates map to CMMS work order types. Most sites migrate their critical-asset FMEAs inside 30 days and complete portfolio migration within a quarter. Book a walkthrough to see live UK FMEA deployments.
Turn FMEA From Audit Paperwork Into a Living Reliability Tool
Oxmaint gives reliability, quality and maintenance teams one platform for FMEA — failure-mode libraries, AIAG-VDA S/O/D scoring, RPN plus Action Priority calculation, corrective actions that become work orders, and post-mitigation re-scoring against real failure history.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is FMEA and why does UK manufacturing use it?
FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) is a structured technique for identifying every way an asset, component or process can fail, scoring each failure mode for severity, occurrence and detection, and prioritising corrective action based on the resulting Risk Priority Number (RPN) or AIAG-VDA Action Priority. UK manufacturing uses FMEA across automotive (IATF 16949), aerospace (SAE ARP4761), medical devices, pharmaceuticals and general reliability programmes. It's the practical foundation of Reliability-Centred Maintenance (RCM) — the failure-mode library that drives maintenance strategy decisions per asset.
What is RPN and how is it calculated?
RPN (Risk Priority Number) is calculated as Severity × Occurrence × Detection, with each factor scored 1-10 per the AIAG-VDA FMEA Handbook (2019). The result ranges from 1 to 1,000. Severity measures how bad the effect is (1 = no effect, 10 = safety/regulatory failure). Occurrence measures how often the cause happens (1 = essentially never, 10 = inevitable). Detection measures whether current controls will catch the failure before impact (1 = certain detection, 10 = no detection). Higher RPN means higher priority for mitigation — but modern FMEA practice supplements RPN with the AIAG-VDA Action Priority (H/M/L) lookup, which always weights high-severity items regardless of the multiplied score.
What's the difference between RPN and Action Priority?
RPN ranks risk by multiplying the three scores. Action Priority (AP) ranks risk by looking up the combination of Severity, Occurrence and Detection in a matrix that treats severity as the dominant factor. The difference matters because two failure modes with identical RPN can carry radically different real-world risk — a safety failure at S=10, O=1, D=1 scores just 10 by RPN but is High Priority by AP, correctly flagging it for action. AIAG-VDA introduced AP in the 2019 Handbook specifically to fix this mathematical limitation of raw RPN. Modern FMEA typically reports both — RPN for legacy compatibility, AP for defensible prioritisation.
Can FMEA scores be pulled from actual maintenance data?
Yes — and this is the biggest advantage of running FMEA inside a CMMS rather than on a spreadsheet. Occurrence scores can be back-populated from historical work-order failure counts, so the number reflects the asset's actual failure rate rather than the team's memory. Detection scores can be validated against inspection and PM records — controls that regularly miss failures score higher, controls that consistently catch them score lower. Severity remains a team judgement, but is anchored to documented effect categories rather than gut feel. The result is scoring that survives audit scrutiny and improves with every completed work order.
Can FMEA corrective actions become work orders automatically?
Yes. Every FMEA action in Oxmaint generates a corresponding work order with an owner, target completion date, evidence capture requirement and post-completion re-scoring trigger. This closes the loop that most spreadsheet FMEAs never close — actions get executed and tracked, evidence is captured against the specific failure mode being mitigated, and the FMEA re-scores automatically once the new failure history reflects the intervention. Sites that maintain this discipline see cumulative RPN reduction as a measurable KPI over quarters and years — which is what an effective reliability programme actually looks like in practice.
