Equipment Criticality

President, SUCCESS by DESIGN

One of the most important areas for the implementation of a planned maintenance or RCM program is knowing how critical equipment is to the company.  Once a company has surveyed the equipment that they own, a crucial step in a successful and sustainable program is understanding which systems will impact safety, environment, production, is costly to repair or replace, or will impact the image of the company.

There is a lot of information that exists on selecting critical equipment, and we will cover some of that in future documents.  However, there is an area that is not often covered in most criticality analysis of machines: Appearance or image.  For instance, if a structure is put through an RCM analysis, a part of it’s function may be the image that it projects.  By following present practices, the façade of the entrance to a building may not be considered important because it does not impact safety, regulation, production or even be costly to repair.  However, if the appearance of the entrance degrades due to a lack of maintenance, then the image that it would project could be counter-productive to attracting business or clients.

Now, if we project this to an item such as the hull of a military vessel.  From a maintenance standpoint, it may be effective to allow surface discoloration of the paint, so long as it does not penetrate the hull.  Methods can be used to verify the paint thickness and a decision can be made to paint or clean the hull based on this value.  However, one of the primary missions of a military vessel is to project power.  In the period of 1907 through 1909, President Roosevelt had a fleet painted white and a required condition of dress for the crew, and sailed the fleet around the world.  The original intent was to project to Japan that the USA could move Navy power to any place on the globe quickly.  However, a large number of port visits occurred, securing a projection of US Naval power world-wide.  It had been determined that the appearance and general condition of the vessels would have a psychological impact that would help avoid confrontation.  With the deferral of painting or cleaning the hulls of modern vessels, the projection is more of disrepair and fostering a negative projection.

In effect, when considering criticality, some additional considerations may be necessary to ensure the full capability of mission.

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