Failure Modes and Effects Analysis in A Hyper-mart Store

[[abstract]]Service systems should be designed for the realization of customer processes and achieving the service performance. An effective service system should be designed to prevent the failures from occurring and reduce the risk of service failures. In this regard, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a systemized group of activities that intent to recognize and evaluate the potential failure of a product or service, identify actions that could eliminate or reduce the likelihood of the potential failure occurrence and document the entire process. This paper applies the FMEA in a hyper-mart store in southern Taiwan from the viewpoints of preventing the failure from occurring and reducing the risk of failures before the service is delivered. Results show that “Unstable supply of goods/merchandise”, “Air-conditioning malfunction”, “No goods/merchandise on designated shelf of the sales floor”, “Slowness of cashier speed”, “Warranty/repair failure in timeliness, items, charge”, “Nonconforming quality of goods/merchandise”, and “Unable to find first line server in the sales floor” are the seven most critical potential failure modes in the research hyper-mart store. The effects and possible causes for each of the seven most critical failure modes are also provided