process-fmea

name	process-fmea
description	Strategy: Research execution process FMEA — analyzes how the research process itself can fail during execution, distinct from design-level failures.
type	strategy
tactics	["failure-chain-tracing","mitigation-validation"]
dependencies	{"tactics":["failure-chain-tracing","mitigation-validation"],"sops":["action-priority-matrix","detection-scoring","failure-chain-construction","failure-mode-extraction","function-analysis","mitigation-design-sop","occurrence-scoring","severity-scoring"]}

Process FMEA Strategy

Analyzes failure modes in the research execution process — not what the design gets wrong, but what can go wrong during implementation.

Method

1. function-analysis maps the execution process steps
2. failure-mode-extraction identifies process-level failure modes (data collection errors, methodology drift, resource constraints)
3. failure-chain-construction traces process failures to outcome impacts
4. severity-scoring, occurrence-scoring, detection-scoring rate each mode
5. action-priority-matrix classifies priority
6. mitigation-design-sop designs process controls

Budget Table

Parameter	S	M	L
Process steps analyzed	4	10	20
Failure modes per step	2	3	4
Chain depth	2	3	5
Process controls designed	2	6	12

Orchestration

function-analysis (process mode) → failure-mode-extraction
  → failure-chain-construction
  → [severity-scoring, occurrence-scoring, detection-scoring] (parallel)
  → action-priority-matrix → mitigation-design-sop
  → re-scoring

Subagents

• function-analysis (process step mapping)
• failure-mode-extraction (process failure identification)
• failure-chain-construction (process-to-outcome chains)
• severity-scoring, occurrence-scoring, detection-scoring (S/O/D)
• action-priority-matrix (priority classification)
• mitigation-design-sop (process control design)

Available Tactics

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

Tactic	When to use
failure-chain-tracing	Tactic: Trace upstream causes and downstream effects of each failure mode. Builds multi-level cause-mode-effect chains for systemic understanding.
mitigation-validation	Tactic: Run mini-FMEA on proposed mitigations to verify they do not introduce new failure modes. Prevents mitigation-induced risks.

Available SOPs

Optional, no fixed order; the final leaf is always a sop.

SOP	When to use
action-priority-matrix	Compute Risk Priority Number (RPN = S x O x D), classify failure modes into H/M/L action priority per AIAG-VDA tables.
detection-scoring	Rate detectability 1-10 (inverted: 10 = hardest to detect). Estimates how likely current controls would catch the failure before impact.
failure-chain-construction	Build cause-mode-effect chains tracing upstream root causes and downstream cascading effects for each failure mode.
failure-mode-extraction	Extract structured failure mode list from raw scenarios or artifact analysis. Produces standardized failure mode records.
function-analysis	FMEA Step 3: Decompose artifact into function tree — identify what each component is supposed to do before analyzing how it can fail.
mitigation-design-sop	Design prevention, detection, and response measures for high-priority failure modes. Produces actionable countermeasure specifications.
occurrence-scoring	Rate failure mode occurrence probability 1-10. Estimates how likely each failure mode is to manifest during research execution.
severity-scoring	Rate failure mode severity 1-10 based on end-effect impact. Follows AIAG-VDA severity scale calibrated for research artifacts.