Since RCM is the most popular topics and for the benefits of laymen here, pls kindly state the advantages and disadvantages of standard Moubray RCM program. Pls use bullet point for easy understanding. Pls qualify your points if you are basing them on non-standard RCM versions.

If anybody expert in RCM can tabulate a series of RCM aspects on the first column, Advantages on second column and Disadavantages on the third column, it would be better.

The advantages are that you get a sane maintenance program.

The disadvantages are that it takes time, resource and money to complete the analysis - then comes the hard part - you have to implement the results.

Josh - I know that is not what you are looking for however if there was a best - the market would have decided a long, long time ago.

I still hope someone posts the columns you requested.

Terry O

Josh,
A very controversial topic.
Terry answered the question.
These are my answers but I would like readers to read another answer… it is not a publicity statement – it questions the fundamentals of managing physical assets.
Answers
RCM is intensive stuff – totally thorough – this is good in some applications and bad in others.
It provides a clear strategy for every likely failure mode in the equipment studied.
It takes an enormous amount of time and most people find it can be justified only in a small percentage of plant items.

Now to be philosophical for a change ..
Maintenance would not exist if plants did not fail.
We would not have technicians, we would not carry spares, we would not have maintenance planning and scheduling and the list goes on. In fact TOH would not be the webmaster of Reliabilityweb.com. Scary thought – he would be out loose in some other industry!
Now Josh, you are a maintenance manager. You are employed because and only because the plant fails. So Josh, what is your scope of work? Do you have a list of all those failure modes that are the foundation of everything you do? Have you analysed those failure modes to figure out what you do about them… do you know which ones you can predict or prevent, do you know which ones are going to happen regardless of what maintenance you do and what spares you need to carry for these events, do you know which ones will happen and you will not know about until something else fails? ..and by no means not the last piece of knowledge, do you know what happens if these failures happen unexpectedly?
All these questions stem from an understanding the failure modes and to me the very fundamental aspect of maintenance. If you can’t manage failures properly, your equipment will not reach its inherent performance levels. You will always have some level of chaos in your plant.
RCM is the blue print for what maintenance managers do. It is your scope of work.
Now to get back to reality – people realize that they don’t need to know every failure mode of their PLC because it does not help to know that detail on the PLC. And they also know that for some equipment the maintenance strategy is obvious without a full analysis. For example RCM people will either not analyse a PLC or they will “Black Box” it; which essentially means they will apply a cut down version of RCM or they will do a PMO exercise on it. The RCM fanatics claim this is proper but in reality it is evidence that RCM does not suit all applications. This is the reason why there are so many alternatives to Classical RCM in the market.
RCM is a process developed for the derivation of commercial aircraft maintenance strategy. Because this work is done prior to certification, RCM was developed as a process developed for the design phase of an assets life cycle. It therefore starts from scratch and because of this, defines the functions, then functional failures, failure modes etc until a complete failure mode and effects tree is completed. This takes enormous time and effort which can be justified in aircraft maintenance because there are lots of them in service and some say the consequences of failure are catastrophic (note I don’t agree on the whole as aircraft are very tolerant to failure).
Josh,
To me some form of maintenance analysis is fundamental to any professional in the business of maintenance. RCM is one tool there are others. To further answer your question, I would be happy to contribute to a comparative analysis.
Is it possible for you to create a list of criteria on the forum and people can make their comments about each? As you know, we developed a process of PMO designed specifically for existing equipment or new equipment where there are other similar types in operation. I am more than happy to answer any questions on that topic.
Regards
Steve

Josh - read the book - don't wait for the movie.

Mike.

quote:

1 )RCM is a process developed...this work is done prior to certification,
2) RCM was developed as a process developed for the design phase
3) It therefore starts from scratch
4) and because of this, defines the functions, then functional failures, failure modes etc until a complete failure mode and effects tree is completed

Steve I broke it down in digestible snacks

According to your statement the classical RCM would be valid only for a new plant or an expansion with unknown equipment/procedures?
You mentioned certification

Steve,
Let me begin with an apology. In what follows I might sound harsh; please appreciate that I feel strongly about some things, and the words could probably have been better chosen. I mean no offence and I respect your views. In this case I happen to disagree with your statements, but do not claim to be right. It is just another view.
You said,

quote:

Maintenance would not exist if plants did not fail.

Economics dictate the level of gold plating. To build a plant that would never fail is not an economically viable proposition. Having established that, let us distinguish between items that can be run to failure because their failure does not matter and those whose failure costs us an arm and a leg (sometimes literally!). We have to find out which ones these are, whether at the design stage or in the operating stage. Some kind of analysis is required, be it a FMECA or RCM or some other method.
The second issue is this: the designer builds in a certain level of reliability. In practice we achieve a much lower reliability (30-60% in terms of run lengths), because we dont operate or maintain it correctly. Getting this right can double the run lengths we achieve today, getting plant availability up by 3-5%. How much money can that make? Let us think about that before we quibble about RCM costs.
In nearly every RCM study I have been involved in, we found 3-5% new failure modes that were 'hidden' and we did not realize were there. Just think of what that means. Before the study we were not aware of these sleeping tigers. A very small number of them may have resulted in a Piper, Bhopal,a BP Texas etc., but we need to know which ones they are.
We have a primary duty to run our plant safely. Hidden failures are always a problem for technical integrity, but if we dont know they exist, what then?
If 'streamlined' or turbo or jet RCMs can do the same job cheaper, let us go for it, BUT not if they can miss any sleeping tigers. Oh yes, we do need to know ALL the credible failure modes, not pick and choose the juicy ones only. We only need to miss one really important hidden failure to suffer badly.

quote:

Because this work is done prior to certification, RCM was developed as a process developed for the design phase of an assets life cycle.

I think you are rewriting history. You know very well what happened in the 1950s and 1960s to Civil Aviation in the US. Specifically what happened to Continental Airlines after they doubled the frequency of engine overhauls and even the FAA did not know what else to do. Nowlan & Heap and United were not working on a new process to build better planes. They were trying to salvage their existing fleet from going down in flames.
For that they needed to study failures SYSTEMATICALLY. Out of that study RCM was born. Its sister MSG-1 was used for building a reliable plane. The tool was developed to stop planes falling out of the sky; it was adapted to build better planes.
Whether in the design or operating phase, I would argue you need to know
- why you need something i.e. its function
- how it can fail, i.e., functional failure
- how it manifests itself i.e failure mode
- what happens when it fails i.e. consequences
- whether this matters
- what we can do about it
- what if we cant do something about it
I am not a 'classical' RCM fan. Straightjackets of any kind are not my cup of tea. However to argue that shortcuts are fine even if they do not address these issues is, for me, not acceptable, on cost or resource availability grounds. If they do address these issues, I am all for it.
If one is standing in the docks when the company is sued for neglect, it may not be easy to say we could not afford the cost or spare the people to do a proper job. Worse if one has to tell a grieving spouse.
Let me repeat the apology. I am only writing this spurred on by Steven's analysis of your post, which other readers may have similarly analysed.
-

I could argue that you only need a certification if something bad happened in the past, drivers license, weapon permit, qualified airplane pilots, crane operators etc..

Some things are over-regulated, in certain parts of the world it is not permitted to repair your own leaking/dripping valve in your own kitchen.
Even when using fishing rod, you need a permit, you receive a ruler and notebook to measure and annotate the place, day, length, description of the fish before you throw it back in the pond or lake. Violation of one of the terms will result in a fine, delivered by e-mail

Mike, I read the John Moubray book which represents one view of RCM. A collective view (based on concensus hopefully) is better I guess and thus this post.

Josh, I think the concensus you're looking for you will not find easily - hence the divergence into so many different forms we have.

Mike.

Josh,

Regardless of whether you suppor thte RCM 2 approach or not, Moubrays book remains the best text I have read on RCM in the marketplace today. (And I have read most of them)

I agree with Vee regarding "no shortcuts" and believe that RCM needs to be applied very rigorously in terms of the method itself.

But, where we disagree is in the way it is implemented. The key reason why there have been the emergence of so many streamlined versions of RCM, with their issues and omissions in some cases, is because the "standard" approach to implementing RCM has been through s team facilitated approach only.

This need not be the case and there are a multitude of ways to implement RCM in a way that is less resource intensive, faster, while retaining the rigour required for comprehensive analysis.

If people were less dogmatic regarding implementing the method, we could have had even more companies fully implementing the principles within RCM, quickly, with less resource requirements, and fewer stremalined approaches.

Best regards,

Svenels,
Classical RCM is valid for any asset. It is not efficient for most. It is effective for new plant or expansion, but even in these cases, it is unlikely that new plant is plant that does not already exist somewhere. If you break down plant into components, you will probably find the same components exist hence you may find that starting from scratch again to be unnecessary.

Vee,
I have difficulty with most of what you have written. I have met your arguments many times as they are the standard arguments presented by the Classical RCM camp.
I will start with what I agree with…. Yes, plant is rarely built such that it will never fail. My statement was to draw attention to that fact and suggest that our job exists because plant fails and we should therefore know how it fails etc etc.

The disasters you talk about certainly tug at emotions but emotive arguments need to be tested like any other. The facts are that none of these disasters occurred because of one or two failures. These, like most other disasters occur because there are a sequence of events and contributing factors and almost always some error of judgment by humans. If you use these examples to justify RCM, then I think you are misleading people. If you need to prevent these disasters Classical RCM may help but I would be suggesting a HAZOP or some kind of sequential cause and effect tree. RCM treats failure modes on their own except for hidden failures and in these cases analysts do not go much deeper than one level in my observation. Typical RCM courses do not teach multi level approaches.

When you talk about knowing every failure mode in the plant you argument is appealing and it has become emotive once again. However, can I suggest you put yourself in the practical situation where you have a hazardous facility that does not have a RCM compliant maintenance program. There may be 100 failure modes in the plant in the hazard category…. Do you wait six years to find them all using classical RCM or do you use a faster process and find them in one year. I think the former is the more negligent.
Your argument is going to question whether or not the faster process finds them or not. I say that our PMO process will but I will probably not convince you until you try our process. We have converted may Classical RCM fans once they have seen and experienced.
Regards
Steve

Steve,

quote:

If you use these examples to justify RCM,

I have no special interest in supporting RCM, classical or otherwise. If your version does the job, and as long as it answers the 7 questions adequately, no worries on my part.

quote:

If you need to prevent these disasters Classical RCM may help but I would be suggesting a HAZOP or some kind of sequential cause and effect tree.

Sure, each process, be it HAZOP, RCM, FTA or a cause and effect tree has its place in minimizing risk. Some are suitable for specific issues. e.g HAZOPs are best applied at design or in design changes, but they are not very good for determining maintenance tasks.

As you well know, multiple failures are combination of situations and events. My position is that most of these situations are caused by our not tackling hidden failures in time, making the situation ripe for a trigger event to permit escalation. Let me quote a real example that happened to me only a month ago. We were watching a TV program one evening when we smelt smoke. An oil skillet had been left on a gas fire in the kitchen by mistake and the oil eventually caught fire. Now to the barriers to escalation; there was no smoke detector in the kitchen to give us quick warning. The blaze was impressive, the lights went off, so the blood pressure was rising. On moving into the house we had installed a dry powder extinguisher in the kitchen. My wife panicked because she did not know how to operate it; fortunately I did. The extinguisher actually worked, and we put the fire off within a few seconds. Multiple failures were
- leaving the gas fire on and watching TV in another room, (human error)
- smoke detector did not work (beacuse we did not install one!), (human error in design)
- Kitchen Lights went off due to the fire melting a light fitting, breaker worked correctly,
- the dining room lights worked (different circuit and breaker installed by us when we moved in),
- fire extinguisher worked (sort of HAZOP prompted that decision)
Unasfe act: leving oil skillet on unattended
Unsafe condition: No smoke detector, or had it been there, if it had not worked(hidden failure); no training on use of extinguisher.
Design changes that did work: Different circuits, and breakers; new extinguisher(potential hidden failure of not working on demand)
Anyway, the damage was relatively small and there were no injuries, but had we been unable to control the fire quickly, the house could have been burnt down.

In the industrial situation we need to know the hidden failures that can bite us. An FMEA is a good way to locate them, but we dont necessarily need RCM for that.

quote:

RCM treats failure modes on their own except for hidden failures and in these cases analysts do not go much deeper than one level in my observation. Typical RCM courses do not teach multi level approaches.

And what is wrong with that? If each hidden failure mode is properly addressed we will have a barrier to prevent escalation. It is a well accepted principle that we do not work on combination events, just one at a time.

quote:

When you talk about knowing every failure mode in the plant

You misquote me; I talked about every credible failure mode, not every failure mode Also I dont understand why it would take 6 years to find 100 failure modes. I think an RCM team can do it in a few hours. I am sure other processes can be equally effective in doing so. By the way, hidden failures are unlikely to be found reactively, waiting for 6 or even 10 or 20 years, so you do need some kind of proactive analysis.

I notice you have been silent about MSG-1 and your statement about RCM being a process for application in the design stage.

While I primarily use Classical RCM for what I do, I am not attached to any particular process, either. I would recommend that you review the RCM Scorecard that has been continuously developed and improved by ReliabilityWeb: http://www.reliabilityweb.com/art05/rcm_scorecard.htm

In the meantime, in cases where I am not asked to use RCM, directly, in the development of maintenance programs, I still work along with the general process to ensure my recommendations are effective. In addition, where I am reviewing existing systems and maintenance, I will often use the Maintenance Effectiveness Review process (there are other variations, but they are all similar) in order to develop my recommendations.

My issue is when any of the processes are not applied correctly, such as leaving out all of the stake holders. In a recent visit, a potential client outlined a problem that they had where a complete RCM was performed (the 'flavor' does not matter) but the SAP personnel were left out. As a result, the findings were determined to be too difficult to implement into SAP, and was therefore not implemented.

I am not going into the RCA of why it did not get implemented, just that it did not and was, therefore, not effective.

Howard

quote:

Nowlan & Heap and United were not working on a new process to build better planes. They were trying to salvage their existing fleet from going down in flames.

Vee... I have not responded to this point because I have been away without any reference material. I am back now and realise I have lent my Nowlan and Heap report out and also my Moubray. Worst part is - I cant remember who I lent them to.
Anyway, I have my Anthony Mac Smith book on RCM 1993. I will quote from Chapter 4.3 on Page 47.
"The Birth of RCM.
RCM epitomizes the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention.
In the late 1960s, we found ourselves on the threshold of the jumbo jet aircraft era. The 747 was no longer a dream; the reality was taking shape as hardware at the Boeing factory in Seattle. The licensing of aircraft type (called Type Certification by the FAA) requires, among its many elements. That an FAA approved preventive maintenance program be specified for use by all owners / operators of the aircraft. No aircraft can be sold without this Type Certification by the FAA. The recognized size of the 747 its new engines and its many technology advances in structures, avionics and the like, all led the FAA to initially take the position that preventive maintenance on the 747 would be very extensive – so extensive, in fact that the airlines could not likely operate this airplane in a profitable fashion. This development led the commercial aircraft industry to essentially undertake a complete reevaluation of preventive maintenance strategy. This effort was led by United Airlines who, throughout the 1960s had spear headed a complete review of why maintenance was done and how it should be accomplished. Names like Bill Mentzer, Tom Matteson, Stan Nowlan and Harold Heap, all of United Airlines stand our as the pioneers of this effort. What resulted from this effort was not only the thinking derived from the curves in Figure 4.1, but also a whole new approach ……
This new technique for structuring PM programs was defined in MSG 1 for the 747, and was subsequently approved by the FAA…
When this was done, it was clear that the economics of preventive maintenance o a 747 sized aircraft were quite viable – and the 747 became a reality"
From memory, I think you will find a similar account in Moubray's RCMII book around page 17.
Hope this helps. If you have a different account, it would be useful for me to know. At this point I stick with this version of history.
Regards
Steve

quote:

My position is that most of these situations are caused by our not tackling hidden failures in time, making the situation ripe for a trigger event to permit escalation.

Vee - I dont agree with this one. My research strongly supports that most of these catastrophes come from failures that are evident. Even your example supports my view....
I dont think the burning oil was, or was the result of a hidden failure. You eventually smelt the problem before your house burnt. You have a failure mode that drives the RCM decision logic to evident, then hazard which leads you to modification viz the fire extinguisher.....perhaps your definition of "hidden failre" is different to mine.

I maintain my position that the arguments surrounding not knowing hidden failures are issues, but not to the extent most people selling RCM services will tell you.
I accept that you are not selling RCM but you are certainly using the standard sales pitch.
Regards
Steve

quote:

Also I dont understand why it would take 6 years to find 100 failure modes. I think an RCM team can do it in a few hours. I am sure other processes can be equally effective in doing so. By the way, hidden failures are unlikely to be found reactively, waiting for 6 or even 10 or 20 years, so you do need some kind of proactive analysis.

Vee… this is what I wrote “There may be 100 failure modes in the plant in the hazard category….”
The logic goes like this – using RCM we typically get one failure mode in hazard category for every 500 we write. If your RCM team is running at a rate of around 50 failure modes per day, then you are going to take 10 days of workshops to find each hazard. It would therefore take 1000 days of workshops (not elapsed days) to discover the 100 hazardous failure modes. The logic of using RCM to detect plant hazards is impractical and such an approach exposes managers to more risk than deploying one of the many alternatives that are more directed at hazard analysis.
RCM should not be sold on these grounds.

Regards
Steve
PS Apologies for the misquote - I dont think it changes the argument... BTW - How do you define credible? - SAE JA1011 uses the terminology reasonably likely

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Steve Turner,

RCM treats failure modes on their own except for hidden failures and in these cases analysts do not go much deeper than one level in my observation. Typical RCM courses do not teach multi level approaches.

You have asked

quote:

And what is wrong with that? If each hidden failure mode is properly addressed we will have a barrier to prevent escalation. It is a well accepted principle that we do not work on combination events, just one at a time.

Since most catastrophes are a result of multiple evident failures - that is "this happens then that happens which triggers this reaction and that human decision under that specific circumstance". These are the chains that cause disasters... RCM does not even come close to resolving them.
RCM will reduce your exposure to catastrophic events but it will do this by reducing the vicious cycle of reactive maintenance and supporting a more planned than reactive argument - which is what Terry first pointed out from memory
I think that has covered off all of your objections Vee.
Thanks for the comments and criticisms - they give us all a chance to challenge the status quo.
Regards
Steve

Hullo Steve,

quote:

I have my Anthony Mac Smith book on RCM 1993. I will quote from Chapter 4.3 on Page 47.

In the preface to the RCM report issued in Dec 78 under the aegis of the DoD, N&H say the following:
Quote Up to this point, the only document outlining the decision diagrams...... has beeen MSG-2, the predessor of RCM analysis. MSG-2 was primarily converned with development of prior to service programs and did not cover the use of operating information to modify the maintenance program after the equipment enters service..... Unquote(italics are mine).
Further N&H go on to say quote
The RCM decision logic.... begins with the factor that determines the maintennace requirements of each item - the consequences of a functional failure - and then an evaluation of the failure modes that cause it.... the role of a hidden function failure in a saequence of multiple independant failures is stressed..... etc.
I think Howard Penrose has a pdf version of this document on his website.

John Moubray states on page 321, I have paraphrased some sentences/paras for brevity. Quote
Although MSG-1 and MSG-2 revolutionasized the procedures followed in developing maintenance programs .....their application was limited by their brevity and specialized focus ..... these shortcomingsled to analytical procedures of broader scope....now known as RCM. Unquote
The RCM report was commissioned by the Dept of Defense in 1974, and publsihed in 1978.

Steve,

quote:

most of these catastrophes come from failures that are evident

I agree fully with you that trigger events are more often than not evident failures. But escalation is generally caused by protective functions or devices not working. Reliaf valves not lifting, fire pumps not starting, drain valves not opening, ESD valves not shutting, extinguisher or deluge systems not working etc. result in major events.
In my example, the trigger event was leaving the gas fire on unattended. The fire extinguisher actually worked, so there was no hidden failure. Had there been one, I may be still rebuliding my house!