reliability centered design

Don Kuenzli, as a plant manager, successfully transformed two oil refineries to highly reliable and sustainable performance by creating a culture of Continuous Improvement through defect elimination. He had a vision to create "a world class facility with pacesetter performance" for these refineries. When Don shared his vision with his boss at one of these sites, he was told that they could not afford to create this level of performance. Managers often make the assumption that the best performance is gained by paying a high price. There are many benchmark studies that demonstrate quite the opposite.

by Abayomi Carmichael CEng MBA BEng, Bermuda Electric Light Co. Ltd.

There is an abundance of data supporting the effectiveness of RCM in a broad range of industries. Yet when staff at the Bermuda Electric Light Co. Ltd researched RCM, precious little data was found regarding its application to a primarily large diesel driven power utilities. The company subsequently decided upon a PMO (Planned Maintenance Optimization) based approach with aggressive targets and timelines. 20% increase in productivity. Chop downtime in half. Deliver this within 1 year. All in unproven territory.

This paper describes the background, content, and use of a newly created document derived from the "Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Scorecard." The RCM Scorecard document is organized around a set of metrics developed by Anthony M (Mac) Smith (author of the Reliability Centered Maintenance^[1] text and co-author (with Glenn Hinchcliffe) of RCM: Gateway to World Class Maintenance^[2]). The latter text addresses analysis during RCM projects and provides examples of metrics from many real (fully identified) clients.

RCM analysis is a powerful tool to change attitudes and practices for both maintenance and operations personnel. This case study examines how Purac America successfully used RCM to improve high cost, underperforming equipment. Maintenance spend fell from 7% of RAV to 4% of RAV and production increased from 50% to 133% of rated nameplate capacity.

The Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) is a 670 bed tertiary adult hospital providing specialist and trauma services to the people of South Australia and surrounding regions. The hospital in located over three campuses. The main campus, the North Terrace campus, is located on the fringe of the CBD.

When you have a satellite worth 300 million dollars hanging from your crane hook, there is a very real incentive for safe, reliable, problem free material handling. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (LMSSC) has more than one hundred cranes lifting extremely high value, critical flight hardware loads.

Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) has become an Army Aviation Priority. The objective of CBM is not just the insertion of prognostics on an airframe, it is also to maximize the time on wing for all components and optimize maintenance practices, as well as Operational Readiness. The current maintenance strategy involves managing components by fleet based on statistical methods and safety factors. This strategy dictates intensive scheduled maintenance, unpredictable maintenance (failures), and scheduled removals. Successful CBM implementation requires a change to this maintenance strategy.

Developing a Classic Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) strategy is time consuming and diverts personnel from their primary function; often resulting in a "hard sell" with both production and management personnel. Judicious application of Classic RCM analysis based on objective evidence of need eases the initial approval process while building the foundation for continued RCM efforts through demonstrated Return On Investment (ROI).