Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)
Reliability Centered Maintenance prioritizes reliability – aka uptime. It’s all about optimizing performance, reducing downtime, and keeping costs down. With this approach, equipment is divided into three categories of maintenance: • Proactive maintenance – Regularly scheduled procedures (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly) • Condition-based maintenance – Maintenance is performed in response to data gathered through condition monitoring and inspections. • Run-to-fault maintenance – Components are allowed to fail because maintenance would have no impact on when or whether they fail.
Our RCM services take a fresh approach to every plant and process, knowing there is no one-size-fits-all way to manage maintenance. We build a bespoke task list using a decision tree to prioritize key areas, then bring in our experience with both the technology and the process to develop detailed maintenance plans and inspection routines. The outcome is a tailored maintenance program specific to your plant, your operational context, and your equipment. The RCM approach is not static but should be continually reviewed and renewed. We’ll remain in partnership with you for as long as you need.
The process typically follows the following steps:
1. Critical equipment is selected for RCM analysis. 2. For every asset chosen, you need to define its inputs and outputs, and the function of the system within which it operates. 3. List all the ways the system can fail to perform its function. 4. Identify the root causes for all these failure modes. 5. Explore how these failures would affect safety, operations, and other equipment. 6. Choose a proactive maintenance tactic for each failure mode that could reasonably be expected to occur. 7. Once the agreed maintenance tactics have been put into practice, you can review the results and decide if you need to make any changes based on the additional information you gather.
Investing in staff is critical to success
Digitalisation makes it possible
Thanks to new technologies, it is much easier to take a proactive – or preventive – approach to maintenance than it was in the past. With condition monitoring tools, your assets can effectively warn you of potential failures before they occur, while advanced modelling enables us to anticipate maintenance needs and their broader impacts. Partnering with us to develop your RCM strategy enables you to better prepare for maintenance works, ensuring you’re carrying out the right work, at the right time, with the right parts and tools to hand. It helps avoid both unplanned and unnecessary downtime, saving you money and bringing you peace of mind.
