Articles: Reliability-Centered Maintenance

An Introduction to RCM

1 The Changing World of Maintenance

 Over the last twenty years, maintenance has changed, perhaps more so than any other management discipline. The changes are due to a huge increase in the number and variety of physical assets (plant, equipment and buildings) that must be maintained throughout the world, more complex designs, new maintenance techniques and changing views on maintenance organisation and responsibilities.

 

Assessing the Cost of Unreliability

It is best to begin a reliability assessment with an evaluation of the overall cost of unreliability. In this context, I am using the term "cost of unreliability" to mean the overall cost resulting from all situations caused by reliability-related failures. This cost will include both the direct and indirect costs associated with all reliability issues that could have been prevented by adherence to good reliability practices.

Beyond “No Scheduled Maintenance”

by: Douglas J. Plucknette of AlliedReliability

When I first began using Reliability Centered Maintenance as a tool to develop a complete maintenance strategy for a process or piece of equipment, I was bothered by the phrase "No scheduled maintenance". I wasn't that the phrase didn't just come out and say what it means, "Run to failure", it was that RCM as program leaves one with impression that nothing more can be done. It all stops here. Run it to failure. Fix it when it's broke. Now, I understand the thought process Nowlan and Heap were using, if a components failure cannot be predicted through the use of on-condition maintenance, prevented by using a preventive maintenance task, or eliminated through redesign, the remaining strategy would be "no scheduled maintenance". Fact is, if you're an RCM analyst, you work should not end here.

Blast Off to Reliability

The RCM Process at United Space Alliance

by Catherine C. Kammerer

United Space Alliance, LLC (USA) is the Space Processing Operations Contractor (SPOC) for NASA at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), and Johnson Space Center (JSC).   In that role, United Space Alliance uses Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) to optimize maintenance practices for the upkeep of tens of thousands of pieces of critical ground support, launch, and flight control equipment.  USA has an institutionalized RCM process with a company policy, functional organization procedures, periodic review of performance, and metrics to track the performance.

Detective Maintenance

When we think about maintenance strategies, the words predictive, preventive, corrective, and breakdown spring to mind. There is however an important class of tasks that we do to ensure that our equipment and Plant remains safe and productive. These tasks are based on a Detective Maintenance strategy. They help us win our licence-to-operate and ensure long term viability. With machinery and Plants becoming increasingly more complex, the proportion of such tasks in the total maintenance program is growing.

Managing a business efficiently means that we have to manage risks well. In turn, this requires that our safety devices and systems work on demand. It is possible to arrive logically at the required availability of the items in question and find suitable detective maintenance strategies. While analysis is relatively easy, there are several hurdles in implementing their results. These challenges can be met by a range of solutions. They are not universal and need to be tailored to each situation.

The word pro-active is very popular, especially in the maintenance context. Detective Maintenance strategies are pro-active. More importantly, they are essential to long term success.

 

Developing and Implementing RCM for a Limited Staffed Facility

by Tim Jackson, Generation Asset Engineer, Florida Municipal Power Agency and Todd A. Cooper, Senior Consultant, Cohesive Information Solutions, Inc.

Background

FMPA is a wholesale power agency owned by municipal electric utilities. FMPA’s membership today includes 30 municipal electric utilities serving approximately 1.8 million Floridians. Fifteen members purchase all their power requirements from the Agency. Five municipals purchase some of their power requirements. In all, FMPA supplies nearly 50% of its members’ total power needs and has ownership interests in 12 operating power plants.

The Treasure Coast Energy Center was constructed by FMPA and went commercial in May of 2008. This 300 MWe Combined Cycle generating plant has been designed to be operated and maintained by a small maintenance and operations staff.

How Portland General Electric is Using RCM to Change Their Maintenance Culture

By Cheryl Bryant, Portland General Electric, Portland, OR, Paul Lennon, Portland General Electric, Portland, OR, and Jason Ballentine, ARMS Reliability Engineers, LLC, Austin, TX

Portland General Electric has recently completed a number of Reliability Centered Maintenance studies at their Boardman generating facility. Although the predicted results are impressive Portland General Electric is simply using Reliability Centered Maintenance as the tool to initiate a change in their maintenance culture.

Maintenance Management: A New Paradigm

This paper attempts to summarise fifteen of the most important areas of change which have occurred in the field of physical asset management over the past fifteen years.

New Equipment Purchasing Program

by Russell Combs, Allison Transmission

Reliability Centered Maintenance and New Machine Purchasing require a plan. You must know what the requirements for the machine tool vendor are and the vendor must know what is expected of them.

Only Leaders Can Provide Successful RCM

Reliability Training, Reliability Centered Maintenance, Root Cause Analysis, a successful manufacturing equipment reliability effort managed by leaders, these are all things companies hope for as they begin to learn about manufacturing reliability efforts and form organizations to support the effort.

RCM Blitz Analysis estimating tool

A Reliability-Centered Maintenance analysis should be viewed as a serious exercise for your business. An RCM analysis is an investment that takes time, resources and money to complete.

Reliability Beyond Maintenance

Originally presented at Reliability 2.0

by Henry Ellmann

Reliability started with Physical Assets, and now spreads into all business endeavours some decades ago in the Maintenance environment. Lately it is being realized that expanding the Reliability concept into other –or all– business areas, major benefits can be achieved.

Reliability-Centered Maintenance and Root Cause Analysis: Working Together to Solve Problems

Mark Galley, Cause Mapping®, ThinkReliability
Douglas J. Plucknette, RCM Blitz™, Allied Reliability, Inc.

As plants around the world strive to reduce maintenance costs and prevent incidents and accidents, they often turn to various reliability tools to speed the road to improvement. Reliability tools first help identify where losses are, then develop procedures to mitigate the losses and, thus, improve equipment reliability and performance.

Reliability-Centered Maintenance Mindset (RCM2) The Cognitive Psychology of Maintenance Development

The Building Blocks of a Maintenance Philosophy

by Michael Rezendes, Raytheon Technical Services Co.

Originally Presented at the Reliability 2.0 Conference 

1. Introduction

The focus of this paper is to familiarize the reader with the concept of Reliability-Centered Maintenance Mindset (RCM2) as a methodology to focus attention on the maintenance developer. The current methodology of RCM in industry today is focused on the Preventive Maintenance (PM) developed for hardware. RCM2 is the methodology applied to the selection and training of the potential maintenance developers. This paper will discuss how a successful preventive maintenance program starts with the maintenance developer.

The 10 Commandments of RCM - Keys for the Success of an RCM Implementation Project

-The 10 Commandments of RCM - Keys for the Success of an RCM Implementation Project

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