Risk measurement and prioritization of auto parts manufacturing processes based on process failure analysis, interval data envelopment analysis and grey relational analysis

Nowadays, decision-making process is faced with different challenges. There are many aspects that must be considered and planned, especially programs in the automotive industry that is associated with human vital factors are not structured. Therefore, managerial and engineering techniques should be used to solve the existing problems. In this regard, the process failure mode and effects nalysis (PFMEA) technique is one of the ways to assess the potential product or process failures and their effects, designs from the beginning to the end of the product life cycle, and identifies actions to eliminate the failures or reduce their effects. The well-known method for piriortizing these failures is risk priority number (RPN). Because the RPN has problems in prioritization of critical processes, a new approach is needed to remove these problems.Thus, in a real case study, first PFMEA technique has been implemented with the help of multidisciplinary teams for the parts of Peugeot 206, Peugeot 405 and Samand (three types of automobiles produced by Iran-khodro company) and affected factors have been obtained as an interval. Then, interval data envelopment analysis (DEA) have been used to prioritize and analyze all failures that are identified by the PFMEA technique for every part. Finally, by combining the results of the interval DEA and Grey relational analysis (GRA), the manufacturing processes are prioritized based on their criticality. Moreover, the proposed actions for all the items associated with each process are provided to prevent some potential failures. The results show that pouring and core making are the most crucial processes in this study, respectively. According to the proposed approach, the decision makers may determine critical processes and plan and do appropriate actions for removing failures or reducing their effects.