FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis — acronym)

Reviewed by Matthew Bartlett, Director · Last reviewed 2026-06-22

Reviewed by Matthew Bartlett, Director · Last reviewed 2026-06-22

Category: Risk identification & assessment · Reviewed by Chrissie Anderson, Client Executive · Last reviewed

FMEA

FMEA is the standard acronym for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. Common related acronyms:

• FMECA — Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis.
• DFMEA — Design FMEA.
• PFMEA — Process FMEA.
• RPN — Risk Priority Number (Severity × Occurrence × Detection).
• AP — Action Priority (replacing RPN in the 2019 AIAG-VDA harmonised standard).

AIAG-VDA harmonisation

In 2019 the Automotive Industry Action Group (US) and Verband der Automobilindustrie (Germany) published a harmonised FMEA standard that replaced the multiplicative RPN with an Action Priority logic tree, designed to remove the well-documented anomalies in RPN scoring (different combinations producing the same RPN despite very different criticalities).

References

• AIAG-VDA (2019). FMEA Handbook.
• IEC 60812:2018.

Cross-references

• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
• Risk matrix

Maintained by Matt Bartlett, Director, Apex Insurance Brokers Limited. FCA FRN 724952. Companies House 07014570.