Improving failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) with consideration of uncertainty handling as an interactive approach

Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) technique has been widely used for evaluating potential failures in different kinds of industries. In FMEA, failure modes are evaluated and ordered through the risk priority number (RPN), which is obtained by production of three risk factors including severity (S), occurrence (O), and detection (D) of potential failure modes. However, conventional FMEA has considerable shortages due to various reasons which uncertainty and ambiguity is the significant one. This paper proposes an interactive approach using fuzzy set theory to deal with possible uncertainties during evaluation. Analytical hierarchy process and entropy technique utilized in order to handle the subjective and objective uncertainty weight, respectively. To demonstrate the application of proposed approach, a practical example in construction period of a refinery is surveyed and potential failure modes are prioritized. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is carried out to verify the validity of risk ranking and the proposed approach. Subsequently, a comparison is conducted to illustrate the superiority of the proposed FMEA with conventional ones.