Explanation
You walk through a process step by step and name, for each step, the possible failure modes, their effects and their causes. You then score the severity, the likelihood of it happening and how well you would detect it. What scores high gets a measure first.
Many organisations calculate a risk priority number from those three scores, others use a different prioritisation. More important than the number is the discussion: the people who know the process estimate together where it can go wrong. After the measures you assess the scores again.
FMEA is mainly used for processes and products. It differs from the Kinney method, which scores a hazard to people, because FMEA also looks at the likelihood that you detect a fault in time. A root cause analysis you do afterwards for a concrete problem, an FMEA beforehand.
Example from practice
A welding company notes an incomplete weld as a failure mode in the welding process, with a weak structure as the effect. Because this would go unnoticed without an extra check, it adds a check step and then assesses the scores again.
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