Supportability
(and FMEAs/FMECAs)

podcast episode with speaker Chris Jackson

What is ‘supportability?’ Easy! It’s the ability of your product, system or service to be supported. But how do we get this so wrong so often? Well the first way is by thinking that supportability is actually some activity where you work out how many spares you need to have on your shelf to last a year (for example). But what if your product, system or service fails so often and is so difficult to repair that it needs LOTS of spare parts? Working this out doesn’t make it more supportable. Another way people get supportability wrong is by thinking about it AFTER you have designed something. How is this wrong? Well … supportability needs to be DESIGNED INTO your product, system or service.

That’s where FMEAs and FMECAs can help. Supportability often revolves around system failure – both in terms of what we need to do to minimize failures (i.e. servicing or condition based maintenance) and what we need to do to rectify failures (i.e. repair). Coming up with corrective actions to mitigate failures is THE MAIN OBJECTIVE of FMEAs and FMECAs. But again … we can’t leave this until it is too late.

This Accendo Reliability webinar originally broadcast on 23 November 2021.