Interval-valued q-rung orthopair fuzzy FMEA application to improve risk evaluation process of tool changing manipulator

Taking actions to prevent the occurrence of failure in advance, rather than improving reliability through post-mortem testing is crucial for improvement of products' quality and efficiency. As a typical prevention reliability analysis method, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) has an innate advantage in conducting this improvement. However, traditional FMEA also contains some deficiencies in rating risks, weighting risk factors and ranking failure modes. In this paper, a scientific risk evaluation method capable of solving these deficiencies is proposed, which combines interval valued q-rung orthopair fuzzy-deviation maximization method (IVq-ROF-DMM) with interval-valued q-rung orthopair fuzzy-additive ratio assessment (IVq-ROF-ARAS) method. Moreover, the concept of sub-risk factors is developed to make evaluation results more practical. To make experts' evaluation information more consistent, a consistency inspection and improvement process is conducted and experts' evaluation information are fused by IVq-ROF weighted average (IVq-ROFWG) operator and IVq-ROF weighted Maclaurin symmetric mean (IVq-ROFWMSM) operator. Finally, a real case vis-a-vis tool changing manipulator of tool magazine is illustrated, and discussion results indicate that the proposed method is rational and valid. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a new scientific risk assessment method which combines different fuzzy evaluation methods to address the deficiencies in the traditional FMEA method, and introduces the concept of sub-risk factors to enhance the practicality of evaluation results. The rationality and effectiveness of the method are validated through consistency inspection and expert information fusion in a real case study involving tool changing manipulator of tool magazine.