Read More

There is nothing I enjoy more than getting a new customer started with a successful Reliability Centered Maintenance effort. The work and instruction that goes with setting a solid foundation that one can build on over time to improve reliability, reduce costs, and reduce the likelihood of health, safety and environmental incidents and accidents is well worth the reward as we see RCM drive a change in business culture. 

Read More

My first introduction to equipment reliability came in 1988 at Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester New York.  Jerry Haggerty, one of the founding members of SMRP (Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals) had begun to assemble a steering committee of Kodak Maintenance professionals who would begin working together sharing information on equipment reliability.  As a member of this team I remember well the emphasis Jerry put on understanding the P-F curve and the P-F interval.  Jerry knew that if we could get our managers to understand the P-F curve we could begin to make the transition into predictive technologies and reduce the amount of Reactive Maintenance being performed at our plants. 

Read More

As a Manufacturing Reliability Consultant, I am often asked by clients “How do we make sure our RCM program doesn’t become the program of the month”?  I always give the same answer, a proven formula that has worked well for many clients: 

Read More

As I attend various reliability conferences year after year, I have noted that each conference will address the topics of Root Cause Analysis, Reliability Centered Maintenance, and Reliability Measures as separate and distinct topics.  Some of the presenters at these conferences will even lead us to believe all we need is this one tool, apply it to everything, don’t try to prioritize because you will miss something, and all of your problems will be solved.   Looking at each tool on its own, they are separate tools each having its own benefits, but the idea that one tool will cure all of your reliability issues is insane.  RCM could be applied to every piece of equipment in your plant, but at what cost?  Each tool will help to advance your reliability efforts and increase your understanding of how to achieve reliability in manufacturing.  What I would like to discuss in this article is how we should use these tools together to maximize the potential of our reliability effort. 

Read More

As I work with manufacturing clients who have made the decision to train and mentor RCM facilitators, I often hear these words: “This RCM stuff is real good, it makes so much sense, but it won’t work here.  Our management likes to spend money on things like this so they can say “We tried RCM” but they won’t support implementing or performing the identified tasks”.  And just as common as the last phrase I hear is “You don’t understand. Maintenance brought you in here.  The managers in operations don’t believe in this stuff and won’t support it.  Operations owns the equipment and they pay us to fix it.  They don’t want to be told by us when the machine can run and when it needs to be down.  This stuff is good but we don’t have a chance.” The most common excuse: “We’re not ready for RCM. Is there something easier we can do first?”  

Read More

A Critical Component in the Seven Steps of a Complete RCM Analysis

In the 27 years following the release of Nowlan and Heap’s “Reliability Centered Maintenance”, many have struggled to understand the importance of each step in this seven step reliability tool. Over the years, the process has been studied, tested, changed and rearranged as people strive to achieve “world class” levels of reliability with less time and fewer resources. These changes often try to eliminate one or more of the seven steps proven critical in completing a successful effort. In reality, the key to speed in performing your analyses while still maintaining a high quality output is understanding the value in each step of this proven process.  

Read More

When I wrote the paper Beyond “No Scheduled Maintenance” three years ago, my motive for writing this paper was to get people to understand that in the real world of maintenance, your job and responsibilities do not end because a decision process lead you to the phrase “No scheduled maintenance”. I had discovered this loophole in the RCM process the hard way. I had just finished implementing the tasks from yet another completed RCM analysis when we suffered the random failure of an electrical component. This failure resulted in six hours of downtime for a critical process while we waited for a part to be identified, located, purchased, delivered and installed. We had discussed the failure of this component in our analysis and the RCM decision process had lead us to the decision block that read “no scheduled maintenance”. At the time, the decision made sense; the failure of this component could not be predicted through the use of On-Condition Maintenance, it could not be prevented or reduced by performing a Preventive Maintenance Task and the component had never failed, thus there was no business case for redesign. Then as luck would have it, the component failed! Within minutes I was on the hot seat answering questions as to why was this process down when we had completed an RCM analysis on it just months ago. 

Read More

Having facilitated hundreds of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) events over the past fifteen years, I have a list of questions that I am frequently asked by customers. While the questions do vary from time to time, the ten most common are:  

Read More