Why Your RCM Needs to be Updated
Rob Kalwarowsky
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Rob Kalwarowsky
Transform Your Leadership & Achieve Extraordinary Results | World-Renowned Executive Coach | TEDx Speaker | Author | Top 100 Most Dynamic Leader | Former College Athlete
Many facilities that have been in operation for a long time have already done an RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) analysis on their equipment. They continue to use its maintenance strategies and may not even determine that the analysis has become outdated. Why is that the case?
RCM cost optimizes maintenance based on failure mode.
Many things may have changed since the last time your facility did an RCM:
- Predictive Maintenance (PdM) Technology - It has become cheaper and more effective. Online sensors are cheaper and more readily available than ever before. Did the RCM analysis choose a run-to-failure or preventive strategy because PdM wasn't cost effective? You might need to evaluate the cost of newer PdM options.
- Safety & Environmental Impacts - We all work in industries that value safety and environmental impacts more than ever. Was this the case when your site last performed an RCM?
- Profitability - Has your industry seen changes in profitability? Does your equipment downtime cost more or less than it did when your facility last performed an RCM?
- Operational Impacts - Are you operating your equipment differently? Is your throughput higher or lower? Has equipment loading changed? These changes can affect how your equipment fails and how much that downtime is worth.
- Equipment - Your equipment may have changed since the RCM analysis. Even if the equipment is the same brand and model, it may be manufactured differently or has seen design changes by the manufacturer. These can impact how your equipment fails.
For these reasons, it just might be time to take another look at that RCM analysis!
Midwest Regional Sales Manager @ Ruhrpumpen Sales Engineer
5 年Good info 4sure! Looking forward to seeing your writing again
Managed Support Services Programme Architect at Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group
5 年Why don’t we simply call it Economic-RCM; an analysis conducted for its economic benefits, business performance and a cost-optimised support solution that is reappraised routinely throughout the product lifecycle.
Support Engineering Specialist, Trainer, Innovator and Pragmatist.
5 年Rob, I would like to see "RCM cost optimizes maintenance based on failure mode" changed to something like: ?RCM derived maintenance achieves the optimal balance between operational effectiveness (including safety) and through life cost based on an understanding of failure dynamics (physics of failure if you prefer). It doesn't roll off the tongue as well, but it is more precise I think, and it open up the topic to some interesting questions, such as should we be striving to measure stress rather than time in order to determine inspection intervals?? New technologies come into play here as well.
Author, Mentor and Granddad
6 年All good points. I would like to add that revisiting your RCM work only takes a small percentage of time. Less than 20% of what it took to begin with.
Book author, CRL, CMM and CMMS champion.
6 年RCM Analysis creates an output document usually in Excel (or stored in 3rd party software). Tip: Store this output directly inside CMMS by creating a new application >> call it “FM” Then join Work Order asset+ failure mode to the “FM” app for quick comparison. Is this a new failure mode? Or, it exists but the maintenance strategy is wrong? Or, the failure codes on WO were incorrect. The 2nd design trick here is to capture the failure mode as actionable data. All of the above supports continuous refinement of the RCM Analysis results and... permits a “build as you go” approach.