OvercomingTheChallengesOfRCM

Living RCM

Information drives the maintenance process. Therefore enterprises devote significant resources to their maintenance information systems. Yet, those systems rarely deliver optimal, unambiguous, and verifiable decision support. Maintenance engineers seldom analyze their equipment health monitoring and work order databases so as to improve predictive performance. Benefits derived from a variety of maintenance initiatives undertaken over the years elude quantification in current management information systems. That is because those systems lack one indispensable element of control. The missing process is Living RCM (LRCM).

LRCM binds RCM (FMEA, FMECA) knowledge to the work order system. Each significant work order, as a result of that relationship, contributes a useable data point to the analysis of reliability. Why analyze reliability? There can be no improvement in maintenance performance without prior analysis. Reliability Analysis (RA) discovers knowledge about failure behaviour. Such knowledge is revealed through samples of data points (called histories or life cycles) acquired at the granularity of the failure mode. Conventional failure “codes” cannot provide the precision needed for RA. As a result of the current practice of using ambiguous and inconsistent failure codes, most maintenance departments encounter difficulty in converting these data into verifiable optimal decisions. They rarely achieve a confirmable process of continuous improvement. It is to this gap that we address this workshop.

Why LRCM?

RCM is a maintenance process that:

1. determines what must be done to sustain equipment operation above the level of performance and reliability required by the users. RCM addresses the consequences of failure. The RCM process is oriented towards practical maintenance tasks. Such tasks are designed to mitigate failure consequences to an accepatble level. The consequences of failure addressed by RCM are:
   
   
   
   1. The unnoticed loss of a backup or safety function (Hidden failure.)
   
   
   2. Harm to a person, or contravention of an environmental norms (Health, Safety, Environment)
   
   
   3. Compromise of profitability or customer service. (Operational)
   
   
   4. Cost (Non-Operational)
   
   
   
   

RCM Challenges

1. Initial RCM analysis is based on best judgment and recollection by a team of experts. But information at the disposal of the team is necessarily incomplete. Therefore the RCM analysis must be refined continuously as new maintenance events occur.


2. Operating contexts, economics, and requirements evolve continuously. However, the typical RCM knowledge base, once delivered, remains static. Therefore, valuable information from the work order process remains largely untapped and unavailable to support reliability analysis and improvement.

Overcoming the Reliability Challenge through LRCM

RCM initially undertaken as a separate initiative will be integrated into mainstream maintenance by means of the following activites:

1. Link each significant work to one or more knowledge records. In this way work orders become true instances of failure modes. Those failure modes are precisely defined in the RCM knowledge base. Reliability analysts will “count” the instances of failure modes in order to understand and resolve reliability shortfalls.


2. Record the Event type (e.g. potential failure, functional failure, suspsension) of each failure mode (linked knowledge record) identified. Event types define life cycles. And life cycles are the “data points” that RA analyzes.


3. If no appropriate RCM record exists, propose one immediately at the moment when the information surrounding the failure or potential failure is fresh.,


4. If the relevant RCM record exists but is incomplete or inaccurate, modify it on the fly (subject to a verification process.)


5. Use LRCM software to track changes to the knowledge base and recognize the knowledge contributors.


6. Use reliability analysis methods to improve prevention and prediction. In particular implement (EXAKT) decision models for the automated detection of potential failures.


7. Use reliability analysis methods to assess predictive and preventive performance.


8. Avoid wasting resources in duplicating information on work orders that should properly be maintained in the knowledge base. Avoid wasting resources in compiling conventional failure codes that yield little analytic value

Benefits

• A continuously improving knowledge base enabled by living RCM.


• The ability to do quick and convenient reliability analyses making reliability and cost improvement a natural process.


• Fully visible and accessible reliability knowledge base.


• Motivated knowledge contributors through automatic recognition


• Flexible, convenient, universal access to RCM knowledge by location, or by equipment type.


• Filtering and grouping of work order and CBM data.


• Drilling down and drilling through to the work order and knowledge record.


• Native analysis methods (Weibull, Pareto, Jack-knife etc)


• Events table generation for CBM optimization and RULE (remaining useful life estimation) models using EXAKT.


• Workflow and information flow designed for maximum participation in continuous process improvement.


• RCM knowledge base responsive to evolving context, requirements, and new information about failure behavior as revealed through the routine work order process.


• Reliability knowledge is captured at the opportune moment when attention, interest, and information are at their peak.


• Integration with Maximo, SAP, Ellipse and other CMMSs.

Major Functions

1          Database integration:

1. CMMS via ETL integration or via Excel extracts
2. Write-back to CMMS to update/correct work order database (subject to security)
3. Condition monitoring, process, SCADA, real time
4. RCM knowledge base

2          Data preparation for reliability analysis

1. Filtering and grouping for complex data
2. Data inspection / cleansing via simple to use table modification,
3. Graphical analysis, drill down, drill through
4. Events and Inspections table generation for EXAKT (option avaliable)

3          Knowledge management

1. Applying the Living RCM process, i.e.
   1. Linking work orders to knowledge records.
   2. Maintaining referential integrity between work order and knowledge databases as knowledge records are inserted, updated, and deleted.
2. Progress tracking
   1. Record of knowledge authorship.
   2. KPIs directly responsive to the right (LRCM) knolwedge and information related behaviors.
3. FMEA, FMECA, RCM configuration to any standard (SAE JA 1011, DefStan 0045, NAVSEA, NAVAIR, MIL-STD-1629A, etc.)
4. Living RCM process enabled by linking work orders to knowledge records and continuous improvement fo the knowledge base.
5. Mulitple views by functional location, equipment type, and RCM hierarchies.

4          Reliability analysis

1. EXAKT integration (optional extra).
2. Native reliability analyses (Top 10, Weibull, Lognormal, etc), drill down, drill through.
3. Reliability key performance indicators (MTBF, Trend, Labour, Materials, Corrective-Preventive comparisons, CBM prediction performance, Potential vs Functional failures, etc.) by CMMS categories, equipment class, location, etc.