Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) delivers a set of reliability-based, proactive tasks, focused on sustaining the desired functionality of systems and equipment. Having an RCM approach directly facilitates scheduling and planning tasks so that a clear, concise priority can be assigned to proactive maintenance and corrective tasks. It also identifies cost benefits for allowing low-risk equipment to “run-to-failure” due to the low economic, safety and/ or environmental impact. This process yields a maintenance program with the lowest base (proactive and reactive) cost.
There are seven main steps to performing a RCM analysis.
Develop operational objectives
Identify functions
Identify functional failures
Determine failure modes & effects
Identify equipment and systems with poor reliability history
Develop task recommendations
Identify “reliability issues” and one-time improvement opportunities