An Evidential Failure Mode and Effects Analysis Using Linguistic Terms. (13th October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Zhen; Xiao, Fuyuan; Fei, Liguo; Mahadevan, Sankaran; Deng, Yong
• Is Part Of: Quality and reliability engineering international. Volume 33:Number 5(2017:Sep.)
• Page Start: 993
• Page End: 1010
• Publication Date: 2016-10-13
• Subjects: failure mode and effects analysis -- Dempster‐Shafer evidence theory/belief function -- risk priority numbers -- linguistic terms -- pignistic transformation; Reliability (Engineering) -- Periodicals; Quality control -- Periodicals; High technology -- Periodicals; 620.00452
• DOI: 10.1002/qre.2075
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0748-8017

Abstract

Abstract : Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) has been extensively used in reliability engineering domain. Risk priority number (RPN), defined as the product of occurrence ( O ), severity ( S ), and detection ( D ) of a failure, is the most important measure used in FMEA for prioritizing risk. In this paper, a new evidential FMEA using linguistic term is presented. First, the linguistic terms have been applied in the form of assessment distribution, which enables the experts to express their assessments in a more realistic way and hence improving the applicability of the FMEA. Second, a novel method to transform the experts' linguistic judgments into basic probability assignments (BPAs) is proposed. Third, the flexibility of assigning a weight to each criterion in the FMEA provides a means of specifically identifying weak areas in the system/component studied. At the same time, the weights can be utilized as the discounting coefficients to address the problem existing in conflicting evidence combination. An example is illustrated to show the practical application of the proposed FMEA methodology in engineering. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.