This document discusses failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) and its application to improve welding processes. FMEA is a systematic method to evaluate potential failure modes, identify causes and effects, and prioritize issues based on severity, occurrence, and detection ratings. The document provides an overview of FMEA types (design and process FMEA), methodology including calculating a risk priority number, and applications. It then discusses implementing FMEA to analyze sub-processes in welding, identify the most critical issues, and suggest preventative actions to improve quality.