Fmea

A failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is an inductive failure analysis used in product development, systems engineering, reliability engineering and operations management for analysis of failure modes within a system. It helps a team to identify potential failure modes based on past experience with similar products or processes or based on common failure mechanism logic, enabling the team to design those failures out of the system with the minimum of effort and resource expenditure, thereby reducing development time and costs. It serves as a form of design review to erase weakness out of the design or process. It is widely used in development and manufacturing industries in various phases of the product life cycle. Effects analysis refers to studying the consequences of those failures on different system levels.
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Basic terms[1]

FMEA cycle.
Failure
The loss of an intended function of a device under stated conditions.
Failure mode
The manner or way by which a failure is observed in terms of failure of the part function under investigation; it may generally describe the way the failure occurs. It shall at least clearly describe a (end) failure state of the item/function under consideration as result of the failure mechanism (cause of the failure mode). For example; a fractured axle or an open electrical contact can be a failure mode.
Failure Cause and/or Mechanism
Defects in requirements, design, process, quality control, handling or part application, which are the underlying cause or sequence of causes that initiate a process (mechanism) that leads to a failure mode over a certain time. A failure mode may have more causes. For example; fatigue or corrosion of a beam or contact is a failure mechanism and not a failure mode. The related failure mode (state) under analysis could be a "full fracture of structural beam" or for example "a open electrical contact". The initial Cause might have been "Improper