FMEA is a team activity which helps to identify all potential causes of process failure.

The outputs from an FMEA are numerical estimates for Severity, Occurrence & Detection

Severity - An assessment of the seriousness/severity of the effect of the potential failure mode to the customer.

Occurrence - An assessment of how frequently the specified cause of failure is likely to occur.

Detection - An assessment of the likelihood that the current process controls will detect the potential failure mode before it leaves the manufacturing location.

From these a Risk Priority Number (RPN) is also calculated. The value of the RPN is used to rank the potential failure modes so that priorities can be assigned in an action plan.

During an FMEA study much attention is paid to producing a list of suggested actions to reduce the risk of failure. FMEAs are re-worked continually and the effect of applying suggested actions is monitored.