RCM Critical Success Factors

At Reliability Solutions, Inc. we work closely with our customers to ensure their people become certified as RCM facilitators by attending our RCM Facilitator training and mentoring. Trained and certified facilitators understand the RCM process and the importance of adhering to a methodology to ensure the success of each analysis.

I recently visited with a customer who informed me that they had tried to start a RCM program a couple of years earlier. "We completed one RCM analysis but the RCM never got implemented and process never got off the ground."

I asked him if they still had the RCM they had completed as I wanted to see the methodology they had attempted and the work that went into it. Sure enough, there on the shelf in the maintenance supervisors sat a three ring binder titled RCM. Simply put the previous work was a mess, even if implemented it had little chance of being considered successful. The problem the failure modes were actually failure effects. This mistake is one of the most common mistakes made by inexperienced RCM facilitators.

One of the ways I use to assess the potential of a newly completed RCM analysis is to review the failure modes. Are they written at specific cause level, or are they written at al level far above the specific causes of failure?

High level failure modes are truly failure effects. As an example this RCM analysis listed one failure mode as "We do not have the correct spare parts in stock." While this statement may be true, the problem will never be resolved unless we understand why they didn't have the correct parts in stock.

Failure modes should always be written at the specific cause level of failure. Specific causes are the direct manor or sequence of events that result in the functional failure of a specific component. If a new RCM team for example were looking at a pump as part of a RCM analysis, they may be tempted to write the high level failure mode of “Pump Fails". Looking at that statement what task would one select to detect, prevent or eliminate the failure mode for "Pump Fails"? Would one task detect, prevent or eliminate the failure?

The pump in fact contains several failure modes and when written at specific cause level we can now select a single task to detect prevent or eliminate the failure.

If you’re looking to learn more about RCM Blitz, or RCM Blitz Facilitator Training, please contact me Reliability Solutions, Inc. at www.reliabilitysolution.com!