Industries
Automotive Engineering Consulting
DFMEA and PFMEA facilitation, APQP support, DVP&R development and launch readiness review for automotive product development teams and their suppliers.
Schedule a Free Scoping CallAutomotive product development has more structure around risk than almost any other industry. APQP, DFMEA, PFMEA, DVP&R and control plans are all mandated, documented and audited.
Which is exactly why the failure mode here is different. The problem is rarely that the analysis was not done. It is that it was done as a deliverable rather than as engineering, and a DFMEA completed to satisfy a gate finds nothing the team did not already know.
The engineering challenges in automotive
Volume is what makes automotive unforgiving. A design weakness that appears in one unit per thousand is a warranty campaign, a recall, and a supplier relationship, all at a scale that makes the original engineering cost look trivial.
Against that, the pressures on the development team push consistently toward compliance rather than rigour.
- Risk analyses completed to close a gate rather than to change a design
- DFMEA and PFMEA maintained as separate documents by separate teams, so design and process risk never meet
- Severity and occurrence rankings inherited from a previous program without re-examination
- DVP&R built to verify requirements rather than to challenge the failure modes actually identified
- Launch readiness assessed against document completion rather than demonstrated capability
- Carryover components assumed to be low risk in an application nobody has assessed them in
The documents are complete, the gates pass, and the field failure still arrives. That gap between compliance and confidence is the one we work in.
How Fortitron supports automotive teams
We facilitate the analyses your process already requires, run as engineering exercises rather than as documentation exercises.
- DFMEA facilitation across mechanical systems, structures, closures and subsystem integration
- PFMEA facilitation for assembly, joining, machining and finishing operations
- APQP support through the phases where risk work drives the deliverables
- DVP&R development traced back to identified failure modes rather than to requirements alone
- Independent design reviews ahead of program gates and launch decisions
- Launch readiness assessment against demonstrated capability
- Training and mentoring so your engineers run better sessions than the ones they inherited
We work with OEM teams and with suppliers. Suppliers frequently get the most from it, because a well-run analysis is the strongest evidence available in a customer review.
What automotive teams get from the work
The point of every one of these analyses is a design change that would not otherwise have happened. That is the measure we work to.
- Failure modes found in analysis rather than in validation, or in the field
- Design and process risk assessed together, so a design fix and a process control are compared honestly
- Verification plans that test what is actually at risk
- Fewer late engineering changes and less launch-phase firefighting
- Reduced warranty exposure from failure modes nobody had ranked seriously
- Analyses that survive a customer audit because the engineering behind them is real
How an automotive engagement runs
Fitted around your APQP phase and your existing templates. We are not asking you to adopt a new system.
- Scoping call. Program, phase, gate dates, and where the current analyses are not earning their keep. No charge.
- Baseline review. Existing DFMEA, PFMEA, control plan, DVP&R and warranty or field data, so the sessions start from what the product has actually done.
- Facilitated sessions. Cross-functional workshops with design, manufacturing, quality, supply chain and validation, using your forms and rankings.
- Findings and mitigation. Prioritised risks with design and process options, and the verification needed to close each one.
- Handover. Facilitation training and templates so your team runs the next program's analyses to the same standard.
Frequently asked questions
Do you work to AIAG-VDA FMEA, or to the older AIAG format?
Both, and to customer-specific formats where a client requires one. The seven-step AIAG-VDA structure is a better vehicle for the engineering, but the format matters far less than whether the session actually challenges the design. We work in whatever your customer will accept.
Are you an IATF 16949 certification or audit service?
No. We are an engineering consultancy. Our work produces analyses and evidence that stand up well in an audit, but we do not certify, audit or represent you to a registrar. If you need certification support, you need a different kind of firm alongside us.
Can you help with a carryover design going into a new application?
Yes, and it is one of the more valuable applications of the work. Carryover parts are routinely assumed to be de-risked because they performed in the previous program, when the actual question is whether the new duty cycle, environment and interfaces change which failure modes matter.
Do you support suppliers preparing for a customer design review?
Regularly. A supplier that arrives with a genuinely facilitated DFMEA and a verification plan traced to it is in a materially stronger position than one arriving with a completed form, and the difference is obvious to any experienced reviewer within minutes.
Our DFMEA and PFMEA are owned by different teams. Does that matter?
It is one of the most common causes of missed risk in automotive development. When the two analyses are maintained separately, a design decision that pushes risk onto the process is never weighed against the process control that would be needed to absorb it, and the honest comparison between a design fix and a process fix simply never happens. We normally run at least one joint session to close that gap.
Talk to us about your automotive program
If your risk analyses are being completed rather than used, or a launch is approaching and the confidence is not there, an independent facilitator changes what the sessions produce.