David Baglee

Dr. David Baglee.School of Computing & TechnologyE: david.baglee@sunderland.ac.ukT: 0191 515 2869

Reliability Centred Maintenance

David Baglee

RCM History

• 60’s: RCM developed in the airline industry• 70’s: RCM used in the army and the American

Navy• 1978: first use of the term “Reliability

Centered Maintenance” in Nowlan & Heap’s book: this book showed that a strong correlation between age and failure rate did not exist

• 80’s - 90’s: transfer of the RCM methodology to other industrial sectors (railways, chemical industry)

David Baglee

The Nature of Failure

Failure

Rate

Life

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RCM Start up

• Establishment of an RCM project group– one person from the maintenance

function– one person form the operations

function– an RCM specialist

• Definition of objectives and scope of the analysis

• Definition of boundary conditions with respect to safety and environmental protection

David Baglee

The Seven Questions of RCM1. What are the functions and performance

standards?2. In what way does it fail to fulfil its

functions?3. What causes each failure?4. What happens when each failure occurs?5. In what way does the failure matter?6. What can be done to prevent each failure?7. What should be done if a suitable task can

not be found?

David Baglee

1. What are the functions?

• Primary– Main reason

• Secondary– Support, appearance, containment

• What does it do vs. What can it do?

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2. In what way does it fail to fulfil its function?

• Record ALL failures associated with each function

• Identical items can have different failures

David Baglee

3. What causes each failure?• What failure mode should be listed?

• Severe & Past• Normal• Human Error• Design

• Failure modes which are already being prevented

• Failures which have not yet happened but do have a high probability of happening

David Baglee

4. What happens when each failure occurs?

• The effect of failure should be recorded– Does it pose a threat to Safety &

Environment?– Is production affected?– Can it cause secondary damage?

David Baglee

5. In what way does each failure matter?

• Different failures have different measures of severity

– Component, sub-component (hidden function)– Individual equipment– Line– Cell– Health & Safety

David Baglee

6. What can be done to prevent each failure

• Run-to-fail • TPM• CBM• Preventive scheduled maintenance

David Baglee

7. What should be done if a suitable preventive task cannot be found?

• Redesign equipment• Redesign production line• Pareto analysis• Decision tools

David Baglee

Data collection

• The data necessary for the RCM analysis may be categorized and collected in the following three groups:

•Design data •Operational data •Reliability data

• The revised tasks and procedures must be documented in a way that ensures that they will be easily understood and performed by the people who do the work

David Baglee

Implementation

• Define the scope and objectives of the project• Establish review groups

– facilitator– project manager– operations personnel

• functions and performance standards– maintenance personnel

• types of failures• most appropriate condition monitoring techniques

– maintenance and operations personnel• consequences of identified failures

David Baglee

Implementation (2)

• Plan senior management audits• Senior management has to agree on

– definition of functions and performance standards

– identification of failure modes– description of failure effects– assessment of failure consequences– selection of tasks

• Implement the selected tasks• Document the tasks and procedures

David Baglee

Benefits

• Cost saving– shift from time-based to condition-based

work•workload reduction•spare part usage reduction

– improved operation performance• Rationalization

– unnecessary preventive work is eliminated

• Improved safety• Improved environmental integrity

David Baglee

Benefits (2)

• A precise and comprehensive maintenance database– during the analysis, information is

gathered in a coherent form• Education

– improved overall level of skill and technical knowledge

• Improved teamwork• Greater motivation of individuals

David Baglee

Summary (1)

• Structured methodology to identify:– How, why & What

• Identifies the ‘root cause’• Helps to develop preventive

maintenance schedules for equipment and sub equipment

• Requires a large amount of data• Often ‘stronger’ if used with TPM/CBM

David Baglee

Summary (2)• In essence, two objectives exist:

1. Determine the maintenance requirements of the physical asset within its current operating context

• THEN2. Ensure that these requirements are

met as cheaply and effectively as possible

• RCM is objective one, TPM focuses on objective two

David Baglee

Summary (3)• TPM is made up of two particular tools

– 5 Why– PM analysis

• Both are “after the fact”

• RCM was developed to provide the best chance of designing appropriate countermeasures before they occurred

David Baglee

Summary (4)

• Key is to focus maintenance resources on the areas where maintenance matters (RCM)

• Develop methodology to suit particular problem and equipment (TPM) or (CBM)

• Whatever “mix” of TPM is used a maintenance schedule should be developed using RCM.

• TPM and RCM should not compete but complement

David Baglee

Examining the Processes of RCM and TPM:

What do they ultimately achieve and are the two approaches compatible?

by Ross Kennedy President, The Centre for TPM (Australasia)