Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) - Implementation and Benefits

Catarina Barros1 and Miguel Massala2

1. INTRODUCTION Nowlan and Heap sought to monitor hundreds of

An organization may find it difficult to remain com- mechanical, electrical and structural aircraft com-
petitive without introducing new management ponents, having concluded that as the compo-
techniques in this non-stop evolving economy. nents aged, it became possible to identify a cer-
Right now, the world is going through a critical and tain failure pattern.
challenging period triggered by COVID-19, which According to Moubray (1997), RCM is a process
has forced organizations to make swift day-to-day used to ensure that any physical asset continues
decisions based on the developments of the pan- to fulfill its desired functions, in the context of its
demic and subsequent global reactions to it. We preferred operational use. Duarte and Fortes
will use these changes to analyze our mainte- (2009) define RCM as a asset management meth-
nance as a whole and clarify what we can im- odology used to determine maintenance tasks ca-
prove. The methodology that we will present in pable of ensuring that a system or process meets
this article will be an option that you can follow and the needs of its users, within the context of its op-
implement in a post-quarantine. erations.
RCM is a methodology that is seen as a proactive SAE Standards JA1011 / JA1012 define the RCM
response to the current competitive market, and as a specific process used to identify the policies
one in which companies should keep up to date and strategies that must be implemented to con-
with. trol the causes and modes of functional failures of
The implementation of this methodology, which any asset running its given operations.
serves to optimize an organization's maintenance The application of this method involves identifying
strategies, will boost the company's productivity actions that help to reduce the probability of failure
and impact its sustainability. for an asset, increasing its reliability and availabil-
This article seeks to publicize and popularize the ity with the overall expectation of lowering the
RCM methodology, and outline the practical im- number of failures it will incur, subsequently re-
plementation process for it, offering surveyed sta- ducing its maintenance costs.
tistical data carried out across several Portuguese There are current standards that serve as a guide
and international companies from various sectors. for implementing this methodology, defining con-
2. WHAT IS RCM? cepts related to the RCM and indicating the best
course of action. There are two standards to note:
RCM originated in the aviation industry during the the norm IEC 60300-3-11: Application guide - Re-
1960s. During this time, the high costs associated liability Centered Maintenance and the worldwide
to preventive maintenance, including frequent standard on RCM, SAE JA1012: SAE Interna-
overhauls or replacements of aircraft compo- tional. A Guide to the Reliability-Centered Mainte-
nents, spurred a special investigation into the ef- nance (RCM) Standard.
fectiveness and efficiency of these maintenance
activities. 3. HOW TO APPLY THE RCM IN A COMPANY
In 1974, the United States Department of Defense The first step towards implementing the RCM is to
asked United Airlines to analyze the processes plan and choose the assets that will be covered
used in the civil aviation industry to develop air- by this methodology and define the personnel re-
craft maintenance programs. sponsible for implementation. The choice of as-
sets for this project must be based on the im-
A pioneering investigation, conducted by Nowlan portance of the production process, maintenance
and Heap of United Airlines, led to the publication history and experience using these assets.
of a report in 1978 entitled “Reliability Centered
Maintenance”. During this this investigation, The implementation of this methodology can be
assisted by the help of the Failure Mode and Ef-
1 Catarina Barros, Navaltik Management, Lda. fect Analysis (FMEA) tool. This tool assesses risk
(email: [email protected]) management with the aim of reducing flaws de-
2
Miguel Massala, Mastering in Engenharia e Gestão tected in the processes or systems by identifying
Industrial, Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa. them. Analyze possible failures, the symptoms tha
(email: [email protected]) are detected (failure modes) and the associated
August 2020 consequences (effects) for all predefined assets

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 Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) - Implementation and Benefits

so that the system can be improved to avoid fail- 3 - How the causes of asset failure are identi-
ures. fied?
When targeting the detection of faults, another Determine the causes that can lead to asset fail-
tool can be utilized, namely Risk Priority Number ure.
(RPN). This tool follows a system whereby the a
number corresponds to the level of attention that 4 - What the effects of asset failure are?
should be given to any fault. To calculate this Identify how the failure compromises the quality
value, we analyzed three variables that will be and costs associated with the final product.
rated between 1 and 10 (10 being the worst-case
scenario). This number signifies the severity of the 5 - Identify the consequences of asset failure
fault, probability of occurrence and ease of detec- modes?
tion.
How do failures affect the asset while in operation,
Finally, the most appropriate maintenance activity the system that comprises the asset, the organi-
for each asset is chosen, taking into account the zation as a whole, security and the environment.
failures associated to the asset.
6 - What is the best preventive maintenance
Where the failure is more frequent and the asset plan to avoid asset failure?
is essential for the production process, the mainte-
nance of this piece of equipment must be mainly Define the maintenance tasks that best suit the
preventive, whereas an asset that has infrequent asset and the periodicity within which they will be
faults and is not so important to the productive performed with the aim of maximizing efficiency.
process will mostly require corrective mainte-
7 - What is the procedure to follow when the
nance, taking into account the cost of each repair.
preventive maintenance solution fails?
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that
sometimes corrective or preventive maintenance Review the preventive maintenance plan again
may not be the only solution for frequent failures. and make the necessary changes.
For certain cases, it is necessary to change sup-
plier, layout or operator to analyze the situation. Once the previous step is finished, the mainte-
nance plan is structured based on the information
Where failure is frequent and the equipment is not resulting from the analysis made previously.
important for the process, or where the failure is
infrequent and the asset is important for the pro- 4. RCM POST-IMPLEMENTATION ANALYSIS
duction process, the maintenance department After implementation, the adequacy of the plan in
must carefully choose the assets that require practice should be analyzed as soon as a gap or
more attention than others, factoring in the pro- error in the plan is identified.
duction process and the resources available to the
maintenance team. There are useful indicators that can be used to
check post-implementation progress, one of
In order to for an RCM implementation to suit the which is MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure).
organization’s structure and activities, it is imper- This indicator tells us the average time between
ative that the seven basic questions of this meth- two failures, and controlling this variable is recom-
odology are answered. The relationship with the mended as the higher the value of this indicator,
asset or system should be considered and the more the available the asset is, and therefore,
planned for in advance, with the role it plays in the the strategy in question can be rendered ade-
company's production process being noted. quate. Another recommended indicator is MTTR
(Mean Time To Repair). This indicator refers to
1 - How the standard roles and performance
the average repair time, and the lower this value
levels of an asset are identified?
is, the less downtime the asset will have in the pro-
Outline the primary functions of the asset that per- cess. These two indicators are the main ones per-
tain to customer satisfaction, alongside the likeli- taining to asset availability.
hood of these functions to be fulfilled. Finally, the main indicator is the availability of the
2 - How the asset fails to perform its function? asset. According to the EN 13306 standard, this
indicator refers to the ability of an asset to fulfill a
Identify the failure modes of the asset. The failure required function under certain conditions at a
mode can be seen as the chaining of situations given time or a certain period of time.
that can cause the asset to fail.

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 Catarina Barros – Miguel Massala

5. BENEFITS OF RCM IMPLEMENTATION

After implementing the RCM methodology, or-
ganizations tend to increase their competitive-
ness and vision in their respective market. Some
of the expected benefits associated with the im-
plementation of the RCM strategy are high-
lighted, such as: the reduction of corrective
maintenance activities; reducing the costs of
maintenance programs; the increase in the avail-
ability of assets; and the increase in the longevity
of assets.
6. STATISTICAL DATA Graphic 2 - Financial Impact of Asset Downtime

The data below outlines the results of a survey 86% noted that they can detect when a piece of
study involving the opinions of approximately 100 equipment is no longer reliable, of which 39%
identify this based on experience, 20% on analy-
maintenance-related professionals, such as ser-
sis, 27% on a deep analysis that is comple-
vice providers, industrial professionals, and public
mented with experience, and finally 14% of re-
administrators.
spondents said they cannot recognize when
equipment is no longer reliable. The graph below
• 69% have identified failure modes for their
shows this data.
equipment / systems.
• 90% say that identifying failure modes pre-
vents failures.
• 57% believe that they have a standard pro-
cedure when they identify the failure mode.

All respondents claim to have a preventive

maintenance plan, with 43% constructing the
maintenance plan based on information from the
manufacturer; 31% based on the asset's history;
15% on experience; and 11% on other methods.
The graph below shows this data.

Graphic 3 - Basis for Recognizing Equipment Reliability

7. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The considerations below are the result of a study
carried out by the authors where, in addition to the
related literature, a survey was carried out on
roughly 100 professionals, which produced the
following results:
• Nowadays, more organizations are looking
for new management techniques to remain
competitive in their respective markets.
• RCM implementation tends to optimize an or-
ganization's maintenance strategies.
• The implementation of an RCM tends to
Graphic 1 - Construction Base of the Preventive Mainte- boost the company's productivity.
nance Plan • The application of an RCM involves identify-
ing strategic maneuvers that, when executed
As for the financial impact caused by the unavail- well, seek to reduce the probability of equip-
ability of assets, 36% of respondents claim that ment failure and increase reliability and avail-
the impact is ‘very high’, 29% claim it was a ‘high ability.
impact’, 24% answered with ‘low’ and 12% are • The implementation of the RCM must be rec-
unable to determine the impact caused by the ommended with the help of the Failure and
unavailability. The graph below shows this data. Effect Modes Analysis tool – FMEA.

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 Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) - Implementation and Benefits

• Organizations increase their competitiveness [4] NOWLAN, F. S. & HEAP, H. F. Reliability-Cen-

and vision in the market in which they oper- tered Maintenance. Technical Report AD/A066-
ate when the implementation of an RCM 579, National Technical Information Service, US
methodology is successful. Departament of Commerce, Virginia, 1978.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES [5] SANTOS, Thiago Alan Dutra dos. Aplicação da

Manutenção Centrada em Confiabilidade em
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Lidel Engenharia de Manutenção) - Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2011.
[2] SAE JA1011 Evaluation Criteria for Reliability- [Consult. 28.06.2019] Available in
Centered Maintenance (RCM) Processes, Society http://hdl.handle.net/10071/18286.
of Automotive Engineers, 1998.
[3] MOUBRAY, J. Reliability-centered mainte-
nance: second edition. 2ª. ed. New York: Indus-
trial Press Inc., 1997.