FMEA template in Excel for machines and components, ranked by action priority

What an equipment FMEA looks at

An FMEA asks four questions about each part of a machine: what is it supposed to do, how can it fail to do it, what happens when it does, and why. In a design or process FMEA, the subject is a product or a manufacturing step. In maintenance, the subject is the equipment you already run: a pump, a conveyor, a compressor, a press. The goal is practical. You want to find the failures that your preventive plan, your inspections and your spare parts do not cover yet.

The worksheet reads from left to right in that order. Write the function first, because a failure mode is the loss of a function: “seal leaks” only makes sense next to “keep the fluid inside the pump”. Then the effect, then the cause. When one failure mode has two causes that call for different controls, use two rows.

• Component: the part that fails, at the level where you would act (mechanical seal, bearing, belt, motor winding).
• Function: what the component must do, ideally with a measurable standard.
• Failure mode: how the function is lost (leaks, seizes, slips, trips, wears).
• Effect: what the operator, the process or the people around the machine notice.
• Cause: why it happens (dry running, misalignment, contamination, missed lubrication).

Rating severity, occurrence and detection

Each failure mode gets three ratings from 1 to 10. The scales sheet in the file describes what each band means for equipment. Use the same scales for the whole analysis, and agree on them as a team before you start, or the numbers will not be comparable from one row to the next.

Rate the situation as it is today, with the controls you already have, not the situation you plan to reach. The revised columns exist for that.

• Severity (S): the worst credible effect if the failure happens. 9–10 is a safety, environmental or regulatory consequence; 7–8 a major breakdown that stops production or puts the asset out of service; 1 no noticeable effect. Severity rarely changes unless the design does.
• Occurrence (O): how often the cause leads to the failure with today’s prevention. 8–10 is several times a year or more; 1 is practically eliminated by design or a proven control. Base it on your work order history wherever you have one.
• Detection (D): how likely your current detection control is to catch the failure before it does harm. 7–10 means unlikely to be detected; 1 means always detected, by an automatic alarm, an interlock or a failsafe. A high D is bad news.
• Leave a cell empty when you do not know yet. A blank rating produces no score, which is more honest than a guessed 1.

Why action priority comes before the RPN

The RPN multiplies the three ratings: S × O × D, from 1 to 1000. It is easy to compute and easy to sort, which is why many worksheets stop there. The problem is that a multiplication treats the three ratings as equal, so a frequent, harmless nuisance can outrank a rare failure that injures someone.

An illustrative example. A seal failure that releases a hazardous fluid: S = 10, O = 2, D = 7, so the RPN is 140. A belt that slips and squeals often but never stops the line: S = 3, O = 8, D = 7, so the RPN is 168. Sorted by RPN, the belt comes first. With the action-priority table, the seal is High and the belt Medium.

The action priority reads the three ratings together, severity first, through the band table published in the AIAG-VDA FMEA Handbook (2019). The template uses the same table as the FreeMaint worksheet. With a severity of 9 or 10, the priority is High at any detection once occurrence reaches 6; a severity of 3 or less never reaches High. Keep the RPN for reference and for comparison with older analyses, but sort and decide on the action priority.

What is in the file

The workbook has two visible sheets and works in Excel without macros. It is blank: no example rows to delete before you start.

• Scope block: equipment or system analysed, team, prepared by, date and next review.
• Worksheet columns: No., component, function, failure mode, effect, cause, S, current prevention control, O, current detection control, D, RPN, action priority, recommended action, owner, due date, status, revised S, revised O, revised D, revised RPN and revised priority.
• Ratings restricted to whole numbers from 1 to 10 by data validation, in the current and the revised columns.
• RPN and action priority computed in grey columns; the priority cell turns red, amber or green.
• A status drop-down with three values: Open, In progress, Done.
• Revised ratings: a blank revised rating reuses the current one, so you only re-rate what the action changes. With no revised rating at all, no revised score appears.
• Second sheet: the meaning of each band of S, O and D, how the action priority is read, and the priority table itself.
• Frozen panes keep the first four columns and the header rows in view; 60 formatted rows, and you can copy the last one down for more.

Mistakes that weaken an FMEA

Weak FMEAs tend to fail for the same few reasons, and none of them is about the template. Check these before the first review meeting.

• Mixing levels: a whole machine on one row and a single bolt on the next. Pick the level where you plan maintenance and stay there.
• Writing causes as failure modes. “Lack of lubrication” is a cause; “bearing seizes” is the failure mode.
• Rating occurrence from memory when work orders exist. A failure the team remembers vividly is not always a frequent one.
• Counting a control that does not run. A detection control only counts if it is scheduled and actually done.
• Stopping at the ratings. An FMEA earns its time when actions have an owner and a date, and when the revised ratings are filled in after the work.
• Never reviewing it. Put the next review date in the scope block, and revisit the analysis after a major failure or a modification of the equipment.

When the Excel file shows its limits

The file is enough for one analysis of one machine, prepared by a small team in a meeting room. It is meant to be used as it is, and many teams keep it that way.

It starts to strain when several people edit the same analysis, when the same pump type runs on three sites, when the control column says “monthly inspection” but nobody can check that the inspection still exists, or when recommended actions sit in a column that no one reviews. The history that should feed occurrence lives elsewhere, and so do the work orders that close the actions.

FreeMaint keeps the FMEA next to the asset it describes. The worksheet is part of the Business plan, $99 per company per month, flat, never per user, and reading existing analyses stays possible on every plan.

• One analysis per asset or per asset category, shown on each asset’s page.
• Failure modes linked to the preventive plans and inspection templates that cover them, with gaps flagged.
• Corrective work order history and MTBF shown next to the occurrence rating.
• Actions with an owner, a due date and a status, turned into improvement work orders in one click.
• A next review date on each analysis, and archived analyses kept read-only as a record.