RCM Facilitation and effective Maintenance

Most of us would agree that there is a new global economy being forged in the manufacturing sector today. The western world is increasingly challenged by the rise of developing economies. We need to be more competitive or we lose jobs.

We either deliver more value to the customer or someone else will. Driving value in maintenance translates to high reliability and central to this will be linking RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) facilitation with effective maintenance program implementations.

The difference between what we, as RCM Facilitators, have been doing in the past and what we will be doing from now on is: an increased emphasis on driving value, not just doing effective maintenance.

RCM Facilitators lead RCM Teams to create well-articulated failure management programs that reduce risks and drive value. For maintenance this means considering three possible types of proactive maintenance tasks (Condition-Based Maintenance – CBM, Scheduled Restoration/Discard – SR/SD, or Detective/Failure-Finding tasks – DM/FFT) :

For Condition Monitoring, we need to consider 4 possible states:

– Normal  – a description of asset status where there is little or no degradation in performance,
– Warning – a description of asset status where there is some degradation in performance but perhaps insufficient to warrant an intervention,
– Alarm – a description of asset status where there is sufficient degradation in performance to warrant an intervention either immediately OR at the next available downturn, and,
– Critical – a description of asset status where there is a significant degradation in performance to warrant immediate intervention.

We need to identify the point (state) where we trigger an actionable alarm and then define what action is warranted, depending on the failure and state. Here’s an example of this for a CBM task:

“Visually inspect the condition of the hydraulic hose for signs of blistering, cracks, leakage, or other physical damage. When visible cracks are found, Maintenance Mechanic replaces hose H1004.b as per SOP #MT501-1(a) at the next available downturn. Repair time = 30 mins. Spare hose (SAE 100R2 Type AT) needed.”

N – Normal (Not brittle, not blistered, not cracked, not leaking – no action)
W – Warning (Brittle, blistered – Continue to monitor hose condition)
A – Alarm (Cracks found – schedule hose replacement at next available downturn)
C – Critical (Leaks found – contact Maintenance for immediate hose replacement)

Provided the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) available on our analysis teams are reasonably familiar with the assets being analyzed, they will be able to quickly & easily assign each NWAC state and describe tasks using their asset management experience and knowledge. Seasoned maintainers (i.e. The subject matter experts or someone they know) have often ‘lived’ the pain of repairing the equipment failure. They know it both intellectually and through experience.

The complete business value proposition (i.e. the promise of RCM) can only be realized if, after all, we do, the agreed-to Proactive tasks are dove-tailed into the customer’s day-to-day work management process.