Failure mode effects analysis (FMEA) has been used in industry for design, manufacturing and assembly process quality control. It describes a formal approach for categorizing how a process may fail and for prioritizing failures based on their severity, frequency and likelihood of detection. Experience conducting a partial FMEA of an accelerator subsystem and its related control system will be reviewed. The applicability of the FMEA process to an operational accelerator control system will be discussed.