why rcm doesn\'t work

24

Upload: ricky-smith-cmrp

Post on 01-Nov-2014

5.077 views

Category:

Technology


5 download

DESCRIPTION

Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is a proven, logical, sensible approach that helps companies improve reliability. Yet most companies are not getting the return they expected. They see RCM as too much trouble for too little reward. So that’s why we decided to publish this new report. Find out why RCM doesn’t work, what needs to change and how to put RCM to work at your company so it doesn’t become another Resource Consuming Monster.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work
Page 2: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work
Page 3: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

Copyright Notice Copyright 2008 Allied Reliability, Inc. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized use, sharing, reproduction or distribution of these materials by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise is strictly prohibited. No portion of these materials may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, without the express written consent of the publisher. To obtain permission, please contact: Allied Reliability, Inc. 4360 Corporate Rd #110 Charleston, SC 29405 Phone 888-414-5760 Fax 843-414-5779 [email protected] www.alliedreliability.com 3rd Edition January 25, 2008

Page 4: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work
Page 5: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc Page 1 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

Table of Contents

RCM Made Simple…………………………………………………........ 3 Does RCM Work for Manufacturers?................................................. 6 RCM is too Resource Intensive Mistake #1…………………………………………………………

7

RCM is Just too Complex Mistake #2…………………………………………………………

8

Moving Forward Without A Plan Mistake #3…………………………………………………………

12

RCM is All About Condition Monitoring Mistake #4………………………………………………………...

15

We Expect More From The RCM Process Than We Do From Our Leaders Mistake #5….……………………………………………………..

16 About Allied Reliability…………………………………………………... 18

Page 6: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 2 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

Introduction

Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is a proven, logical, sensible approach that helps companies improve reliability. Yet most companies are not getting the return they expected. They see RCM as too much trouble for too little reward. So that’s why we decided to publish this new report. Find out why RCM doesn’t work, what needs to change and how to put RCM to work at your company so it doesn’t become another Resource Consuming Monster.

Page 7: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc. Page 3 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

RCM Made Simple

It has been almost 30 years since Stanley Nowlan and Howard Heap published "Reliability Centered Maintenance", the ground-breaking study that changed maintenance forever. Yet myth, mystery and confusion about RCM still abound. So let's begin with the basic truths. To paraphrase RCM practitioner, Doug Plucknette, of Allied Reliability, RCM is a structured process developed to ensure the designed safety and reliability capabilities of a process or piece of equipment. The beauty of understanding the RCM process is it can be applied to virtually any physical asset in any plant around the world. RCM's roots go back to the early 1960's, when the commercial airline companies were considering buying the new jumbo jet, the Boeing 747. At the time, the airlines religiously practiced time-based preventive maintenance. Why? Because the conventional wisdom was that equipment wears out over time. So that meant taking planes out of service for maintenance every 1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 hours. But the problem with the 747's was the amount of maintenance specified by federal regulators was three times more than the maintenance required for Boeing 707's. That meant more time in maintenance, more time out of service, and a huge disruption to operations. Clearly, the airlines' traditional approach to maintenance would not be economically feasible for the new jumbo jets. So the airlines had two choices: Either buy a larger fleet of planes or develop a more economical approach to maintenance. That's why United Airlines led a task force to re-evaluate the concept of preventive maintenance and determine the most economic strategy, without compromising safety. The result was the process that we now know as RCM, which was successfully employed on the 747 and all subsequent jet aircraft.

Page 8: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 4 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

Who Developed RCM? United, along with and Boeing Aircraft Corporation, were the early pioneers of RCM. Other airlines also considering buying the new 747's joined the task force and contributed to the process. But it was Boeing and United who took the lead in developing a logical, rational approach to maintenance that would also be acceptable to the federal regulators. In 1976, the U.S. Department of Defense contracted with United to publish how airlines develop maintenance programs. The result was "Reliability Centered Maintenance", a landmark 495-page report by Stanley Nowlan and Howard Heap, which described the RCM methodology developed for the Boeing 747, Douglas DC-10 and Lockheed 1011. (Nowlan was the Director of Maintenance Analysis for United; Heap was United's Manager of Maintenance Program Planning.) In 1978, the Defense Department placed the report in the public domain for use by anyone interested in it. How RCM Revolutionized Maintenance The key to RCM was abandoning the philosophy of "preserve-equipment" in favor of "preserve-function". Simply put, equipment became the means to an end, not the end in itself. In addition, Nowlan and Heap concluded that a maintenance policy based on operating age would have little, if any, impact on failure rates. Thus, applying time-based maintenance on equipment which has no "wear-out" pattern was futile. This forced a change in philosophy from, "It wasn't broke, but we fixed it anyway" to "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Nowlan and Heap also concluded that: - Time-based maintenance works only for a small percentage of

components, and then only when there is solid information on their "wear-out" characteristics”.

- Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) is the most-preferred option.

That means monitoring, observing and taking non-intrusive actions, such as lubricating and cleaning, until a condition signals that corrective action is necessary.

Page 9: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc. Page 5 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

- Run-to-failure is a viable tactic in situations when there is no safety

and little economic impact. - In a significant number of situations, the very act of maintenance itself

causes subsequent failure of the equipment. - Non-intrusive maintenance tasks should be used instead of intrusive

maintenance whenever possible. In other words, don't do any maintenance, except monitoring and non-intrusive sustaining actions, until condition directs intrusive corrective action.

RCM Pitfalls In the last 40 years, no better method than RCM has been found for determining what maintenance should be performed. Four statistically significant studies have confirmed the validity of RCM. Yet, in a survey conducted by Reliabilityweb.com in 2005, several companies offered the following excuses when it came to their failure to begin or implement RCM as a reliability tool. "Mining, like all industries, wants results right away, not in 6 months or a year. The classical RCM process is too time and resource intense." "RCM is a great tool but very resource intensive." "100% reliability is extremely expensive, difficult to attain, and not necessarily the right answer." "RCM is misunderstood to be software." "In the beginning, it was hard. And it is still a challenge to steer the mind-set toward more condition-based maintenance than time-based." "We always ran into the problem with implementation. In the few places where we implemented it successfully, it was at the maintenance level. And recognition for it was non-existent." "The system is very strong but too high level ..." The truth is, there are many pitfalls in RCM. But few get revealed when an RCM project fails. You see, nobody wants to write an article or present a paper at a conference which reveals how money was wasted and great visions were never realized.

Page 10: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 6 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

Does RCM Work for Manufacturers?

At the RCM 2005 conference in Clearwater, Florida conference attendees were asked: “If your company did the maintenance for commercial airplanes, how often would you fly?” Scary thought? Fortunately, most industrial maintenance managers will never have to answer that question. To be sure, when it comes to the understanding of maintenance and the roll of Reliability Centered Maintenance, the airlines are far ahead of industrial manufacturers. After all, RCM was invented by the airline industry. But also, in the airline business, the maintenance mission is quite clear, it begins with an understanding of equipment functions and the failure modes that result in functional failures and ends with a very specific maintenance strategy designed to mitigate the consequences of each failure mode. As a result, maintenance is viewed as a reliability function instead of a repair function. In viewing maintenance as a reliability function, the airline industry simply charges maintenance with the following mission: To keep airplanes airborne, full of passengers, and safe. This mission leads to a very tight set of maintenance guidelines, procedures and controls. On the other hand, inside the typical manufacturing plant where maintenance is viewed as a repair, the maintenance mission is not that clear. For example, if a packaging line goes down for a couple of hours, that may not be such a big deal. But when you’re talking about a plane with hundreds of people on board, that’s a totally different story. See, the fundamental difference between RCM and all previous approaches to maintenance is the emphasis on two things: safety and reliability. So even when you take out the safety factor, it’s obvious that RCM is still the best way to go. If RCM is so successful, why do some companies have failed RCM efforts?

Page 11: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc. Page 7 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

To answer this question, Allied Reliability created the paper: Why RCM Doesn’t Work – How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends. In viewing the problem with a traditional RCM approach, Allied Reliability offers not only the top five causes for failed RCM efforts, but pro-active tasks that can be put in place to eliminate the failures.

“RCM is Too Resource Intensive” Mistake Number 1 Leading to False Starts and Dead Ends in RCM RCM is often viewed as a very resource-intensive process. To perform a single RCM analysis requires a substantial amount of work with literally hundreds of decisions that have to be made. So RCM should not be applied to every single asset you have. The key is to apply it only where it’s needed. For instance, there might be only about 10% of the assets in your plant where you need RCM. If you apply RCM on that critical 10%, you should be able to improve your overall capacity, increase output and return a value much greater than the money you spend to do it. How do you determine where you should apply RCM? Focus on the systems that will give you the best Return on Investment (ROI). Simply put, RCM is a slam dunk when it comes to return on investment for critical assets. Begin you RCM effort by identifying the top 10% of your most critical assets. Once this list has been identified, you should now begin to measure Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) on these assets and performing RCM analysis on those critical assets that have equipment-based operational, speed and quality losses. If you have selected a critical asset, your implemented RCM maintenance strategy will show measurable improvements in OEE with added improvements in Health, Safety and Environmental performance as well. As a general rule, the success of your first implemented RCM analysis will build the business case to complete RCM analysis on the remainder of your critical assets. Why is RCM viewed as being resource-intensive? A good RCM analysis requires a number of key people to take time away from their regular jobs. Subject matter experts, like operators, maintainers, supervisors and trades people, will need to become a part

Page 12: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 8 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

of your RCM effort as it’s their expertise and experience that makes the process successful. While some plants believe they can’t afford or even consider RCM – especially in a reactive situation where the main job is to keep the plant running. Companies who have successful RCM efforts in place know the reality when it comes to critical assets; “We can’t afford to not do RCM when it comes to our critical assets as the cost of lost opportunities alone will doom our business.” When we get down to the nuts and bolts of why RCM works for some companies and not others we find three things all the successful efforts have in common;

1. Leadership

2. Structure

3. Discipline

Companies that don’t use RCM, look for and share openly with others excuses as to why a proven process didn’t work at their plant. While some may view RCM as being labor intensive, companies who have successful RCM efforts understand that RCM analyses performed by your experts on critical assets will provide a return on investment in improved equipment reliability with reduced Health, Safety, and Environmental incidents and accidents.

It takes experience and expertise to understand your failure modes and mitigate the consequences. Only your people bring both experience and expertise to the table. They are the critical resources able to deliver exceptional results.

RCM Excuse Number 1 is busted!

“RCM is Just too Complex” The 2nd Mistake Leading to False Starts and Dead Ends in RCM If you’re looking for the book of excuses why RCM didn’t work at your plant we have heard them all. Recently we received a call from an operations manager at a mid-sized U.S. utility company. He’s part of a five-member corporate team trying to improve the way they do maintenance.

Page 13: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc. Page 9 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

Basically, their challenge is to raise availability across their fleet of plants from 85% to 91%. At first, he wanted to talk about some Condition Monitoring solutions. It seems they have numerous plants, and "each one is doing something different on PM and PdM." Then I asked a couple of questions about RCM. Quickly, his tone changed from enthusiastic to reluctant. Finally, he said, “Hang on a minute; I need to shut my door.” "Look", he said, “RCM is a dirty word around here. I’m working with a group that really doesn’t like RCM. What they like is condition-based. So I can’t go back to them with anything that sounds like RCM.” Now what’s interesting is there are four other members on the team, and are all maintenance managers. So in effect, the company’s senior maintenance staff has already decided NOT to use RCM as a way to improve availability. Why? I didn't ask, but I have a strong hunch that the complexity of an RCM analysis and all the documentation required can be extremely demanding. That's the main reason why manufacturers have been so slow to adopt the RCM approach. Reliability Centered Maintenance is a structured step by step, logical process. The structure of this process, while quite simple, requires a trained facilitator who has the discipline to lead the team step by step through the process. At first glance, the RCM process can be intimidating and we are often challenged with the question; Do we really need to discuss failures to this level of detail? If you want to be successful in improving reliability, the answer is yes. Remember the three traits of companies who have successful RCM efforts? Leadership – Structure – Discipline The RCM process provides the structure needed to be successful. Our Allied RCM Blitz™ Practitioners provide the leadership and direction through hands on mentoring that will provide the leadership and discipline it takes to make RCM part of your company culture.

Page 14: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 10 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

Some recommendations when it comes to starting a successful RCM effort: 1. Sell team members on the benefits of RCM RCM takes time and effort away from people who already have full-time jobs. So you’ve got to be able to explain to them, in plain English, the benefits of RCM. Forget all the technical jargon. You must be able to show how RCM will improve the economics, safety or quality of life at the plant. Post some examples of successful RCM efforts and begin your effort by getting baseline OEE measures on your critical assets. Continue to measure OEE as you begin to complete and implement the tasks from your RCM analyses. The success or your effort and the improved OEE will sell the process. 2. Use TBTUF Total best thinking up-front, or TBTUF, is one of the keys to successful RCM. In the simplest terms, RCM is a decision-making process which calls for answers to questions such as: - What is this system supposed to do? - How can it fail to do that? - What causes it to fail? - What happens when it does fail? - Can we predict or prevent that from happening? Obviously, the answers must come from the people who know the system: operators, maintainers, supervisors, technicians, designers and manufacturers. The key is to identify these experts and get their buy-in well in advance.

Page 15: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc. Page 11 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

3. Involve the RCM team members in implementation

Each RCM analysis should have an Implementation Manager assigned to the analysis. This person is responsible for tracking and reporting the progress of your implementation to company management and the RCM team. To help push the implementation forward, each task identified in the RCM analysis should be assigned to a specific individual and each task should have a due date for completion. One way to assist in moving forward with implementation is to involve the RCM team in the implementation of RCM tasks. The people involved in the analysis will often take ownership in making sure the tasks are implemented, scheduled and completed. 4. Get leaders on board It is not unusual to see the least experienced and most junior personnel assigned to an RCM analysis team. What does that tell everyone about the project? Your RCM teams should be made up of people who are viewed as:

• Experts in the process or piece of equipment being analyzed

• Respected by their peers in operations and maintenance

• Outspoken, Honest, and Open to Change 5. The A-B-C formula for avoiding "analysis paralysis" Information overload makes it difficult, if not impossible, for people to make decisions. So that's a good reason to avoid non-stop RCM analysis meetings which tie up people for weeks on end. Your RCM meetings should be prepped, planned, scheduled and performed with the efficiency of heart bypass surgery and tying up critical resources (people) for weeks on end will only doom your effort. The RCM Blitz™ methodology came about as a result of recognizing that RCM analyses don’t have to last for weeks and months on end. The average RCM Blitz analysis lasts less than one week and by Monday afternoon the following week you will have a complete implementation plan in place.

Page 16: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 12 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

Best of all, the team can start implementing the simpler changes that come out of the RCM process and start showing results! Debunking myth number two, “RCM is too complex”! RCM is not complex, it’s structured, and as a result, this structure requires a detailed plan and the leadership to see it through.

Moving Forward Without a Plan The 3rd Mistake Leading to False Starts and Dead Ends in RCM One of Murphy's Law states that everything takes longer and costs more than originally projected and we're afraid that's true about many RCM projects. The old maxim "time is money" most definitely applies to maintenance. One sad fact we all recognize about time; You can't speed it up or slow it down. When we are young we can’t wait to get older so we can drive or move out on our own. When we get older we often wish we could go back and change things or just slow time down to enjoy life. So when it comes to time, what do we have left? We have to manage time to get the most out of life and the same is true when it comes to RCM. The best RCM efforts have a detailed plan from start to finish and this plan is reported to everyone who has a stake in the RCM effort. From a 30,000-foot view, there are basically four steps to any RCM project: 1. Up front planning 2. The RCM Analysis 3. Implementation of RCM tasks 4. Achieve results, benefits and return on investment The secret is to consider step 3 first. Why? Because if there's no execution, there will be no return on investment. So if you don't have or can't get the resources needed for implementation, there's no point doing any analysis.

Page 17: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc. Page 13 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

Now this point seems obvious, but it's often overlooked. For instance, in 2001 a steel plant did a complete RCM analysis on a number of critical systems in their rolling mills. But afterwards, the company's management denied all requests for resources to implement the results. The company later declared bankruptcy and the plant was sold. In another case, a big international chemical company hired a consultant to facilitate RCM analysis on a troublesome process which was impacting multiple plants. The analysis was completed, report written and recommendations made within 3 weeks. Yet two months later, the implementation still hadn't begun, and it probably never will. The key to having a successful RCM effort comes in understanding why the two above RCM efforts failed. What did both efforts have in common? They failed to have a detailed plan in place to set the project up for success. If you don’t have a detailed plan for success, then you can plan on failure. Think Days Instead of Weeks Without a doubt, one of the biggest success factors in RCM is how fast you can go from the analysis in step 2 to implementation in step 3. The whole purpose of RCM is to determine the most cost-effective type of maintenance for a particular system. So it makes sense that the sooner you can implement the results of an RCM analysis, the sooner you should be able to show the value. In contrast, the longer it takes to implement the results of an RCM analysis, the less likely the project is to succeed. That's why one of the roles of an RCM Implementation Manager is to push, push and push some more to keep the elapsed time between analysis and implementation down to the shortest number of days possible. You've probably heard of the concept in time management which says work expands to fill the time available. That principle will kill you in RCM if you aren't careful. It's the positive pressure of tight deadlines and high expectations that get and keep RCM projects in high gear.

Page 18: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 14 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

He Who Hesitates…. Another costly mistake is when RCM leaders wait until all the analysis are complete before they begin implementing the new maintenance plan. To be sure, in most cases implementation can and should start soon after analysis begins. The fact is that RCM analysis teams have many "Ah Ha" moments when they uncover changes they know would have an immediate impact ... IF immediate action was taken. The secret is to treat the analysis, implementation and results steps as overlapping with each other rather than in strict sequence. The ideal situation is when you can begin showing real benefits of the RCM process before the analysis stage has even been completed. Keep Approval Chains to a Minimum Finally, it's a good idea to keep the approval process as short as possible in order to prevent any delays in execution. You don't want anyone who is unfamiliar with the RCM process blocking progress without good reason. All the mechanisms should be in place to start implementing results well before the analysis is complete on the first system. There can be multiple activities to consider, including: - Identifying and allocating resources - Writing new procedures, walking-down equipment and getting approvals

- Buying special parts and tools - Training and orientation of crafts personnel on new procedures - Planning and scheduling - Executing new tasks The reality is that some companies can take months to make small decisions. That's why it's important to set aggressive timelines and make everyone live by them once the changes have been approved. Shall we put to bed RCM excuse number three? Rest assured, your RCM effort will fail if you don’t have a plan. RCM takes time, critical resources and money, so it should only be applied where it will show a return on investment.

Page 19: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc. Page 15 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

Does that statement sound familiar? It should, we have the same expectations for capital spending, yet how many capital projects move forward without a plan? If you want your RCM effort to be successful you will need a detailed plan in place. The RCM Blitz™ method gives your RCM facilitators detailed instruction on how to set your effort up for success. Prior to starting your first RCM you will prepare the RCM contract that details each step of process, the people involved in each step and the date it will start and the date it will be completed. This contract requires signatures from company management, area managers, supervision and the RCM team. In ten years of leading companies to successful RCM efforts, every company that completed the RCM contract implemented their analysis tasks, showed a return on their investment and continued with a successful RCM effort. The contract is your plan for success when it comes to RCM, and now that we have a plan, you can forget about making mistake number three!

RCM is All About Condition Monitoring “We don’t have it, we don’t get it, and we can’t afford it” The 4th Mistake Leading to False Starts and Dead Ends in RCM RCM is often viewed as a complex and advanced reliability tool intended only for companies with advanced maintenance and reliability efforts. As a result, many companies who could be successful in RCM are scared away from the tool because they don’t have a predictive maintenance group or their tradespeople have not been trained in precision alignment or balancing. As a result, they shy away from a tool that will help them build the business case for using PdM and precision maintenance techniques. A good RCM analysis delivers a balanced set of maintenance tasks designed to ensure the inherent designed safety and reliability capabilities of your asset. The key word here is balanced, each task is designed to mitigate a specific failure mode with the recognition that one task can not and will not cover all the failure modes for any given component.

Page 20: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 16 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

RCM is all about understanding failure and the relationship between causes and effects. It’s a process that shines a light on each component detailing, not only the ways it can fail, but also the ways we as humans cause it to fail. As part of the RCM decision making process we ask the question; Can the failure be detected using On-Condition Maintenance? When I ask this question regarding the failure of a high speed bearing on a piece of rotating equipment, I will often get the following answer; “Well, no…..we don’t have a vibration group, so we can’t detect that failure.” Reliability Centered Maintenance is not about the haves or have nots, it’s about making the determination of what is the best thing to do. So when it comes to answering the question; Is there an On-Condition task that would detect the failure? The correct answer is always yes, and that task is vibration analysis. If we follow the RCM process and start our effort with a plan, the business case to perform vibration analysis and other PdM techniques on our critical assets will be a slam dunk. The cost of bringing in the technology, detecting the failure, and planning and scheduling the repair prior to failure will be far less than cost of an unscheduled emergency failure. Reliability Centered Maintenance is all about building the business case for reliability. It’s about learning how to operate and maintain our assets in the most efficient way possible. With that being said, I think we can burry excuse number four. Every one can afford to learn and apply PdM techniques to their critical assets.

“We Expect More From the RCM Process Than We Do From Our Leaders” The 5th Mistake Leading to False Starts and Dead Ends in RCM It’s been said in the past that one in every three RCM efforts will end in failure. I think that statement is actually being very kind to RCM. I would put the number to two out of every three.

Page 21: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

How to Avoid the 5 Biggest Mistakes that Lead to False Starts and Dead Ends

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc. Page 17 of 18 www.alliedreliability.com

These numbers are both sad and discouraging considering the workforce in today’s manufacturing companies are both more experienced and educated than the workforce Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap had to work with. I stated earlier that Reliability Centered Maintenance is about understanding the relationship between causes and effects, and in doing so we use the experience of our RCM team to identify the failure modes of our assets and in turn use the RCM decision logic to identify a maintenance task to mitigate each failure. Using that same logic, could we not perform a RCM analysis on Why RCM Efforts Fail? In simple terms Reliability Centered Maintenance is Pro-Active Root Cause Analysis and if we look at the causes of why RCM efforts fail, one major piece of this cause map would be leadership. All by itself RCM is a fantastic process, put six people through a RCM analysis and they will come out of that analysis with a thorough understanding of how the equipment is supposed to work and the consequences of each failure mode. That knowledge has tremendous value, but on its own, it won’t show a return on investment for the RCM analysis. To get the value from your analyses, they must be implemented. While its been stated over and over that implementation is the graveyard of RCM, I tend to have different belief. While your RCM effort might be dead and buried because it wasn’t implemented. Your leadership holds the RCM shovel and they have two choices:

1. They can use the shovel to dig a grave by ignoring the process, expecting implementation to happen all on its own.

2. They can use the shovel to dig the foundation for a successful

RCM effort by becoming involved with the planning and execution of each step of the RCM process.

When it comes to successful RCM efforts, we see leaders and leadership at all levels. People who understand that while the RCM process will deliver the structure, it takes people to deliver the leadership and discipline necessary to guarantee success in any RCM initiative. With Leadership factored in….RCM really DOES work!

Page 22: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

WHY RCM DOESN’T WORK

www.alliedreliability.com Page 18 of 18 ©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc.

About Allied Reliability

Allied Reliability helps companies build wealth and competitive

advantage through world-class predictive maintenance and reliability

across a global manufacturing network.

Founded in 1997, Allied Reliability has quickly become the largest

engineering firm specializing in predictive maintenance and reliability

engineering.

Today, Allied Reliability serves some of the biggest names in

manufacturing, including more than 200 plants and facilities in the

U.S., Canada, Europe and Latin America.

FREE Reliability Consultation

Every year the gap between the companies who are taking advantage

of reliability and the ones who aren’t gets wider.

That’s why you can’t afford not to make significant reliability

improvements in 2007. Those who prepare now will reap big dividends

in the future…while others will struggle to survive.

There are very few shortcuts. However, one is to make sure you get

the right help.

Now you can get answers to your most important questions about

RCM with a free, 55-minute reliability phone consultation.

There’s no hassle, no cost and no obligations.

Any information you provide is confidential and will not be shared

outside of our firm.

To take advantage of this special offer contact Allied Reliability at:

Phone: 888-414-5760 Fax: 843-414-5779 Email: [email protected]

Page 23: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

©2007 Allied Reliability, Inc www.alliedreliability.com

Legal Notice

While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication,

neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions or

contradictory interpretation of the subject matter herein.

The purchaser or reader of this publication assumes responsibility for the use of these

materials and information. Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, including

federal, state and local governing business practices and any other aspects of doing

business in the U.S. or any other jurisdiction is the sole responsibility of the purchaser

or reader. Allied Reliability, Inc. assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on

behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials.

Page 24: Why RCM Doesn\'t Work

Allied Reliability, Inc. 4360 Corporate Road ▪ Suite 110 ▪ Charleston, SC 29405 USA

Phone 888-414-5760 ▪ Fax 843-414-5779 www.alliedreliability.com ▪ [email protected]

Allied Reliability helps companies build wealth and competitive advantage through world-class predictive maintenance and reliability across a global manufacturing network.