TECHNICAL NOTE - IMPLEMENTING RCM DARYL MATHER

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1 Are my RCM Analysts effective? My experience has been that the failure to properly implement, with everything that is behind the vast majority of reliability initiative failures, no mater if we are talking about RCM, RCA, Weibull analyses or an EAM system upgrade.

Despite a decade or so of streamlining and irresponsibly cutting away at the rigor of the method, the real reasons for failure are almost always implementation related.

Within RCM specifically implementation can mean a range of different things depending on the approach your company has taken.

These normally include areas such as:

1. Asset selection

2. Benefit identification

3. Fast, accurate RCM analyses (Where everybody usually focuses)

4. Presenting results and maintaining momentum

5. Managing the authorizations process

6. Data uploads and changes

7. Monitoring benefit realization and reporting back

Most approaches to training and managing RCM implementations are very narrow and deal almost exclusively with step 3, how to run fast and accurate analyses. And while this is important (vital in fact) no large scale RCM effort can survive without focusing on all steps above.

1.1 A scorecard for Analyst performance

So if RCM Analysts are supposed to deal with a broad range of responsibilities, how can I be sure that they are doing a good job?

Before we continue I have one small disclaimer.

The information from here forward is provided only for employee development. It is not (NOT) intended to be the backbone of employee discipline procedures, or a big stick to beat RCM Analysts with.

1. Asset Selection

a. Assets selected in line with the corporate Value Quadrantiii.

b. Assets systems should be selected for completion within 10 – 15 x 4 hour sessionsiii. (If using a team facilitated approach)

c. All analysis, except for highly critical assets, should be at an asset system level. Period.

2. Benefit identification

a. The impacts of every asset selected for analysis should be clearly estimated and weighed against other options prior to starting the analytical process.

3. Analysis Rate (After mentoring)

a. Analytical time, including prior preparation, should reflect a pace of > 12 failure modes / hour. This does not include implementation time.

TECHNICAL NOTE - IMPLEMENTING RCM DARYL MATHER

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b. Cycle time between completion and implementation should not exceed two – three days.

4. Accuracy

a. All benefits should be achieved on-time and on-magnitude. Benefit tracking will need to be established on a system by system basis.

b. Where sophisticated reporting is provided, analysts should also track he following:

i. Unpredicted/unplanned failures where there is a failure management policy in place.

ii. Where costs of failure exceed anticipated costs of maintenance. (In Run To Fail scenarios)

iii. All reactive failures. While no analysis is ever perfect, RCM Analysts need to be conscious of reactive events when they occur and adjust their analyses to suit.

The number of analyses does not matter. What does matter, very much, is how they perform when they are doing these analyses.

If they are consistently hitting the targets and guides below then they can be used to continue with the RCM process as their workload allows.

The time they have available is driven mainly by their effectiveness, regardless of the situation in your company.

An Analyst, who goes after benefits that his company wants to achieve, and is able to implement and prove these results within a short period of time, will gain additional support.

But it is not good enough just to do good work; people need to be made aware that you are doing good work.

Gaining momentum, support, and financial backing will depend not only on their ability to achieve results, but also on their ability to tell everybody that they have achieved results.

i The Value Quadrant© is a tool to help organizations determine the key impacts they wish to achieve from any corporate or departmental improvement initiative.

ii All analyses need to follow the corporate reasons for implementation. This means that if the goal of the company is to increase revenue opportunities then assets selection should be made using these criteria.

iii Due to the rigorous nature of RCM Analysis, and of facilitated team sessions, all team facilitated sessions should be planned to take no more than 4 hours at a time. And be completed within no more than 15 x 4 hour sessions at a maximum.