The failure mode was in the product.
It wasn't in the DFMEA.
It could have been. The failure was discoverable long before launch in the use case, the load path, the component interfaces and materials. RiskForge runs a rigorous derivation from governing science in minutes, before design lock, and again whenever the design changes.
Fast and Thorough + Integrated End to End = Smoother Launches & Less Warranty
AI-enabled DFMEA and DVP&R, built from the
science of your product.
RiskForge is an AI-enabled tool that builds a DFMEA and a companion DVP&R from documents your team already has: the BOM, the product brief and an assembly drawing.
- Faster.A full first draft in minutes, not days, so engineers get valuable time back.
- Inexpensive.A run costs a fraction of an engineer's time, so you can run it at concept and as the design evolves. Or, if you are weighing design alternatives, you can easily get a full DFMEA on each one instead of a quick look at its top few risks, so design decisions are made on the whole picture.
- More thorough.It doesn't stall at the usual suspects, and a large product gets the same rigor as a small one.
- Broader coverage.The knowledge of specialists most teams don't have on staff, like metallurgists, chemists, stress analysts, polymer engineers and tribologists, applied to every row.
- Independent.It has no stake in the design and no reputation riding on it, so it probes the product the way a non-advocate reviewer would, not the way its design owner would.
And the DVP&R comes tied to it, every test linked to the failure mode it verifies.
Your engineer confirms the function list before the analysis starts, and owns the result at the end. No DFMEA is perfect, and RiskForge doesn't claim to be complete. Unlike a typical DFMEA, it tells you which inputs it was missing and where its coverage ended, so your review goes straight to the gaps.
The depth of a mature DFMEA process, without needing a reliability department to run it.
The later it's found, the more it costs, in money and time.
The same failure mode, found at each stage from first analysis to the field. The DFMEA is the cheapest place it will ever be caught.
- 1Found in the DFMEAChange the design on paper
- 2Design freezeRevise released drawings and specs
- 3ToolingRecut or modify steel
- 4Design validationRedesign, rebuild and retest
- 5Process verificationRework tools, requalify the process
- 6LaunchScrap inventory, slip the launch date
- 7Customer field failureReturns, warranty, recalls, lost customers
The DFMEA process has failure modes of its own.
Pull your last ten field failures. Open the DFMEA signed before launch. Count how many are in it.
Coverage depends on who's in the room
Most mechanical engineers know nylon swells when it absorbs moisture. Fewer know it also gets significantly more flexible. If the part depends on stiffness, a materials engineer sees the failure mode in about five seconds, if they're in the room. Outside automotive, aerospace and medical devices, they usually aren't.
It covers the usual suspects, then stalls
A DFMEA is hours of careful, tedious work stacked on ten other priorities. The familiar failures get rows, the team extrapolates just a little, then asks "what else" until it runs out of steam. Even the most mature processes have their limits.
The designer builds it
Engineers understate risk in a product they designed. Economists call it the endowment effect: we overvalue what we own. Give an engineer a competitor's product and they'll find ten things wrong in minutes; their own gets handled with kid gloves. The review, usually led by the design owner, becomes a defense of the design instead of a probe of it.
What you see is all there is
Kahneman's name for how we judge: by the evidence in front of us, never by what's missing. A missing failure mode leaves no trace. The rows that are there read as complete, so the review signs off on the document it can see, and nothing on the page says what never made it in.
None of this is carelessness. Smart engineers build the DFMEA, review it and sign off, and the field still finds what they missed. However good the team's intentions, some risk always gets through.
Your engineers make the calls. RiskForge does the work between them.
- Engineers1
Send the design
BOM, product brief, assembly drawing.
- RiskForge2
Map functions
What each part, interface and subsystem must do in use, shipping, storage and disposal.
- CheckpointEngineers3
Confirm the list
Keep, change, merge, strike or add. Nothing runs until you sign off.
- RiskForge4
Derive risk
Every function and use state: what breaks the function? Load, heat, wear, chemistry, electrical.
- RiskForge5
Build the DFMEA
Establish modes, effects and causes. Score severity, occurrence and detection.
- Engineers6
Review and approve
Add, modify or delete individual rows. Assess highlighted notifications and gaps. Own the DFMEA.
- RiskForge7
Build the DVP&R
Every row on the DFMEA gets addressed with tests based on internal procedures or external standards.
- Engineers8
Execute
Perform validation and reassess risk.
Three things back from every run.
A DFMEA built on your product
Cause, failure mode, effect and S/O/D for every row, from your materials, geometry and duty. Not a template with your part names dropped in.
A DVP&R tied to it
A verification plan built from the DFMEA, with each failure mode linked to the test that would catch it.
A list of what it didn't know
Where an input it needed was missing, RiskForge names it instead of assuming a value. Your engineers close the gap; the tool never quietly fills it.
See what it finds on a product you've already launched.
We're enrolling a small number of pilot partners, starting with a proof run.