Improving reliability for SMES in India by using faults classification

In today's dynamic environment, a reliable production system has been anticipated as a critical factor for competitiveness, SMEs in India are facing challenges due to growing competition to sustain themselves. Enhancing their quality and also quality of the products is absolutely essential to sustain growth. Quality of production process means reliable and sustainable process. Therefore it is necessary for SMEs in India to maximise their current resources, process reliability and reduction of wastes in equipment. Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) is one of the most effective techniques to achieve high reliability. In this paper a classification of faults for SMEs in India is introduced which is an extension of the standard FMEA. A survey was carried out and data collected from different SMEs (473 industries) through questionnaire supplied to them. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 16 was used to analyse the effect of independent variables such as equipment problem, procedure problem, personnel error, and design problem, training deficiency, and management problem, external phenomena on dependent variables such as severity, occurrence, and detection. This paper provides guidelines for SMEs in India to improve reliability of manufacturing process without investing the resources.