reliability centered design

The newly updated (June 2014) Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Project Manager's Guide, originally facilitated by Jack Nicholas, Jr. in 2005, uses a clear, flexible process and set of criteria so an organization can assess what it takes to successfully conduct and implement an RCM project and avoid pitfalls along the way to experiencing measured results that add significantly to the bottom line.

H. Landis Floyd, PE, CSP, CMRP, Fellow IEEE

Business and commerce are totally dependent on electrical equipment and systems for energy, control and communications. These systems can be complex and the task to analyze failure consequences can be equally complex. Unrecognized consequence of failure, especially if the failure impacts personnel safety, can have unacceptable moral and legal implications as well as significant financial costs. Recent trends in workplace electrical safety shed new light on reliability needs for certain equipment in electric power and control systems. One trend is the increasing attention given to mitigating arc flash hazards in electric power systems.

by Doug Plucknette

Having facilitated hundreds of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) events over the past fifteen years, I have heard a lot of questions running the gamut of topics from right on target to a little off base. However, I do believe that any question is a good question if it helps participants better understand the RCM process. While the questions do vary widely, in the following pages, I will discuss the ten most commonly asked. . . .

by Doug Plucknette and Paul R. Casto, CMRP

In today's economic environment, where companies around the world are tightening their financial belts to decrease costs while assuring plant safety and environmental protection, the key performance indicators of equipment and process reliability have become an important area in which to focus initiatives. While some companies got an early start in building reliability programs, the vast majority are just now getting educated about the benefits that equipment and process reliability can bring to their business. Those who have worked in the field for years understand that the word "reliability" means more than just having equipment and processes that run when needed. Reliability has a direct effect on nearly every aspect of your business. Reliable equipment costs less to maintain, produces higher product quality, is more energy efficient, and most importantly, reliable equipment and processes suffer less health, safety, and environmental incidents.

It is understood that RCM is the correct tool to apply to high risk assets. RCM is also applicable to assets that you have tried to develop maintenance programs for but failed. Quoting the current head of aladon RCM is applicable to approximately 15% of assets in 50% of industries. This would correlate to 7.5% of all assets require RCM. RCM is a powerful effort intensive tool that if applied properly will have high level results that if implemented, executed and followed up will insure cost effective maintenance. Even hard core RCM purists will not apply it to all assets. So if the 7.5% is correct then what should be applied to 92.5% of the remaining assets?