Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM): Optimizing the functionality, efficiency, safety, & durability of your Building & Industrial Infrastructures.

$701.3billlion. This is the predicted value of the global maintenance industry by 2026; it was worth $616billion in 2020. 西门子 , in their publication titled- ‘The true Cost of Downtime 2022’ estimated that large industries record an average production interruption of 323 manhours/year, $532,000/hour ($2million/hour in the automotive plants) and $129million/plant annually. It further stressed that Fortune Global 500 companies’ loss to unplanned downtime increased from $1.3trillion in 2019-2020 to $1.5trillion in 2021-2022 (about 11% of their annual turnover). The alarming figures require a more strategic maintenance technique to drive them down, and Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) comes to mind. This opinion was corroborated by Deloitte Consulting and McKinsey Global Institute which reported that equipment downtime costs can be reduced by 5-25% through the implementation of advanced maintenance strategies. Similarly, 普华永道 , in their report of the survey of 268 European companies titled- ‘Predictive Maintenance 4.0- Beyond the Hype: PdM delivers result’ submitted that companies reduced their maintenance cost through the adoption of a more predictive maintenance approach.

The Game Changer

RCM is one of the mostly widely adopted advanced predictive maintenance strategies in building and industrial maintence. It focuses on optimizing the reliability and performance of physical assets through the prediction and diagnosis of failure, its impact on cost, operation and maintenance, and the deployment of effective mitigation strategies. While RCM is traditionally associated with industries like aviation, manufacturing, and oil and gas, its principles has been applied in building maintenance as well, especially in the maintenance of boilers/water heaters, HVAC, elevators, fire alarm and sprinkler system, among others. The goal is to ensure that maintenance activities are targeted and effective in preserving the functionality, efficiency, durability, and reliability of these equipment. As IBM put it, RCM seeks to make maintenance optimization strategies more effective, more predictive and more risk based.

Evolution of Reliability-Centered Maintenance

The concept of RCM was postulated in 1978 by 3 engineers- Tom Matteson, Howard Heap, and Stanley Nowlan in their white papers on aircraft maintenance and reliability requirements submitted to the United Airlines and the United State Defense Department. ?Before then, there had been alarming rates of plane crashes in the global aviation industry due to the reactive maintenance strategy being adopted. According to Daniel Wong, between the 1940s and 1950s, the focus on equipment and machineries maintenance was ‘fix it when it breaks down’, a term now referred to as Run to Failure (RTF). Later on, between the 1960s and 1970s, scheduled overhaul became norm. Stanley Nowlan and Howard Heap submitted that “every item on a complex piece of equipment has a ‘right age’ at which complete overhaul is necessary to ensure safety and operating reliability. However, since the 1980s, performance expectations from assets and equipment have shifted towards cost-efficiency, durability, improved availability and reliability, safer practices and procedures, enhanced product quality, and environmental sustainability. In 2018, James Reyes-Picknell and Jesus re-Sifonte re-engineered the concept as RCM-R, “the first step in delivering fewer breakdowns, more productive capacity, lower costs, safer operations and improved environmental performance”. Today, RCM has been enhanced with technologies like robotics, sensors, Internet of Things (IoT), borescope, virtual/augmented reality, machine learning, vibration analysis, data analytics, simulation, artificial intelligence, modeling, digital twins, infrared, sound analysis/ultrasonic and oil analysis, among others.

How Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) can enhance your O&M?

RCM has been positively impacting equipment and infrastructures since it invention. Some of the ways are as follows.

1.Improved Equipment Reliability & Predictability

Reliability is a major concern in equipment’s operations and maintenance (O&M). It relates to the predictability of the Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) and Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) of an asset using tools like sensors, sound, vibration, and data analysis etc. For instance, ProRail , the company in charge of the maintenance of the Dutch railway network used a network of high-tech sensors to reduce the number of failures in its switches, overpasses, signposts, and detection systems by a ? in recent years; the sensors predicted 80% of failures. By addressing the root causes of failures and implementing preventive measures, RCM helps improve the overall reliability of equipment.

2. Focused & Optimized Maintenance Activities

The result of an enhance equipment predictability is a more focused maintenance culture, it makes it possible to identify the most critical equipment/components, including their failure mode and implications, thereby allowing Facilities Managers to efficiently focus their maintenance efforts and resources on these aspects of their building infrastructure. For instance, an Automobile manufacturing concern once reported that the integration of an IoT driven RCM in their maintenance processes enhanced their predictive maintenance capabilities and increased their Mean Time Between Repairs (MTBR) by close to 20%.

3. Improved Safety and Environmental Performance

The International Labour Organization estimates that about 240million work-related accidents happen every year with a daily fatality of 6,000 lives. Equipment failure cannot be divorced from these statistics. A major benefit of equipment predictability and reliability is that it reduces the possibility of an accident. For instance, a good RCM of high-risk equipment like boilers, furnaces, escalators, elevators, water heater etc. will proactively address potential failure modes, increase the assets' predictability and reliability and consequently help organizations to prevent occupational hazards that could lead to injury or death of their employees or environmental disaster. This contributes to a safer working environment and helps organizations comply with regulatory requirements.

4. Cost Savings & Efficiency

Reactive maintenance and energy inefficienies are key drivers of maintenance costs in buildings and allied infrastructures. ?An efficient RCM will help to plug these leakages. More succinctly, Forbes reported that industrial manufacturers lose close to $50billion per year due to equipment downtime while Henkel puts the annual loss to downtime generally at $1trillion; this is an avoidable cost. According to NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration , RCM can reduce this cost more than other preventive maintenance approaches. For instance, Enertiv a real estate maintenance company says IoT-based predictive maintenance reduced their maintenance costs?by almost 25%. Similarly, a safe working environment means more savings for organizations, Liberty Mutual Insurance estimated that employers paid $1billion per week for direct workers' compensation costs for disabling, non-fatal workplace injuries in 2018 alone. The International Labor Organization estimates that it cost economy about $1.25trillion annually.

Watch out for more benefits of RCM and how to implement it in your maintenace activities in the next edition.