From diversity to consensus: Impacts of opinion evolution and psychological behaviours in failure mode and effect analysis

Abstract

Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is a preventive risk management tool, and has been widely applied across various industries. Most existing FMEA methods are concentrated on obtaining a complete risk ranking of failure modes. However, in some situations, it may be enough to divide failure modes into several ordinal classifications. Moreover, the consensus issue needs to be taken seriously because multiple FMEA experts have different risk assessments due to their diverse knowledge backgrounds. Meanwhile, bounded confidences, opinion evolution and psychological behaviours of FMEA experts also play key roles in the consensus-reaching process. Therefore, this paper integrates a classification consensus-based model with bounded confidences and opinion evolution, from the perspective of prospect theory into FMEA. First, FMEA experts provide risk assessments by prospect theory. Then, a novel consensus-reaching process is developed, in which a dual feedback adjustment mechanism based on opinion evolution and bounded confidences is designed. Finally, a case study and a comparative analysis are provided to show the application value of the proposal. The classification consensus-based proposal enriches the theory system of FMEA, and has a good reference value for solving the reliability management problems in the aerospace, automobile manufacturing and other fields.