All,
Thanks for all your replies. In the manual it is given that "A reduction in severity ranking index can be effected through a design change to system, sub system or component, or a redesign of the process". Am I interpreting wrongly?
That is a very misleading statement, as I tend to agree with everyone above. I read the severity rating in a
Process FMEA as:
"How Serious is the Effect". Looking at a standard FMEA format, the effects column comes before any actions you take, so how can the sevrity rating be affected by a change in the process. The effect will always be the same no matter what you do to the process. The only way you can change the severity of an effect is to change the design, so that the effect is mitigated To use the example given in the FMEA manual,
If an effect of a failure is a tyre blow out, in order to reduce the serverity of this effect, you can design in features that allow the tyre to run flat and therefore this reduces the severity of the blow out!
I think you will find that the Severity rating for failures related to operator safety can be reduced using a redesign of the process. So for example, if you have a drill and the failure mode is that the operator could put their hand into the dangerous area, the severity would be high for operator injury. However, if you introduce a device that cuts the drill off if their hand enters the the dangerous area, you are reducing the severity of the effect of putting the hand in the area!!!!!

You follow?
I think this is might be what it means, relating to operator safety and comfort issues rather than customer satisfaction/end product issues!