April 03, 2008
Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Tip
Revisiting the Task Selection Decisions of Your RCM-Based Program
Periodically – every 5 to 10 years – you should review the task selection step of your Reliability Centered Maintenance-based (RCM-based) analysis efforts to determine if the decisions made earlier still make sense or if unneeded tasks have been added – or remain in effect for no justifiable reason.
The time frame between reviews depends on the turnover you’ve experienced in your workforce and the degree of their involvement in the task selection process. The less turnover you’ve had in RCM-experienced personnel the longer the time you can allow between reviews. If, in addition, you’ve started and/or added substantially to the Predictive Maintenance (PdM) capability at your site since completing your conversion to an RCM-based program, there are even more reasons to revisit the decisions of the past.
The Reliability Centered Maintenance methodology remains, 30 years after it was described in the seminal 1978 Department of Defense report on it and over 40 years since its first application to commercial aircraft, the most effective way to determine exactly what maintenance to perform on any physical asset.
Members of your staff who were engaged in initial RCM analysis and implementation efforts probably have the basics still embedded in their approach to maintenance. However, many with such knowledge and experience may have retired or moved on to other organizations. Those personnel who replaced them and contemporaries not involved in RCM and PdM implementation are left to their own intuition to determine what maintenance to perform, especially for new assets. The intuitive (and more costly) way to view machinery revolves around the following principles, shaped largely by our experience with personal motor vehicles:
• Machinery ages and wears out over time
• Some routine maintenance actions such as lubrication, filter and obvious wear item replacement (such as belts or tires and windshield wipers for vehicles) extend useful life.
• The ability to repair machinery quickly is the most desirable trait in maintenance organizations.
• Added life and reliability can be achieved by periodic restoration – rebuilding or overhauling machinery.
• Periodic internal inspection and/or parts replacement are the keys to reliability.
Once an RCM culture combined with PdM knowledge and capability is added to the skill sets of maintenance personnel, the group attitude towards maintenance changes to reflect the following, less costly yet more effective approach to maintenance:
• By understanding machinery functions, failures and causes we can properly define exactly what maintenance to perform to assure reliability, availability and longest life.
• Machinery reliability, availability and longest life are enhanced by maximizing non-intrusive maintenance, application of predictive condition monitoring, hidden failure detection and repairs that correct functional deficiencies that are found early in their development.
• The ability to properly define and avoid machinery functional failures and plan and schedule needed repairs at optimum times is the most valuable feature of a successful maintenance organization.
• In some cases the optimum strategy is to allow selected machines to run to failure (that is to the total inability to perform their functions) and then repair them.
One of the findings during audits of some RCM-based maintenance programs is that many of the decisions on what tasks to perform were made before initiation of a predictive maintenance program of any consequence. In some cases knowledge of PdM capabilities wasn’t available to or within the team conducting the selection of tasks during the last step of RCM analysis. As a result, many time-directed, intrusive maintenance tasks were instituted simply because there was inadequate PdM capability or knowledge present at the time the RCM task selection was made. Thus, preferential implementation of condition monitoring and condition directed repair tasks was not done initially.
Subsequently, when the PdM program was initiated or expanded, there was no evaluation made to determine if Condition Monitoring and related repair tasks were seeking to find and mitigate the same failure modes or causes as intrusive, time directed maintenance tasks they should have replaced. The result often is that a less costly set of condition monitoring and condition directed repair tasks were superimposed on top of a more costly and time consuming set of intrusive, time directed tasks. Many of the tasks are in fact redundant. The overall cost of maintenance is more than twice as costly as the preferred approach in such instances.
Tip provided by by Jack R. Nicholas, Jr., P.E., CMRP
Find out how to focus your organization on the principles of RCM and PdM
April 03, 2008
Managing People Tip
Get Results Or Maintain Relationships. Can You Achieve Both?
When facing employee performance problems, leaders often feel caught in “either/or” situations – having to choose between two equally important end states:
Get Results or Maintain Relationships.
But you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. Performance results and positive relationships are not mutually exclusive … you can achieve both! How? By conducting effective problem-solving discussions with employees – conversations that not only engage people in meeting their job responsibilities, but also pass the test of fair and consistent treatment.
Here’s one you can take to the bank: While punishment should be avoided, discipline doesn’t need to be! Discipline should be about helping employees understand what’s expected of them … about solving problems, achieving desired levels of performance, and getting results.
You see, discipline isn’t an action that you – the person with authority – must take against employees for misbehavior. Instead, it’s a process to help people make good choices about working together safely, ethically, and productively. By focusing on problem solving and treating employees as “adults,” you can avoid much of the pain and negativity that typically exists. It’s a better and less stressful approach – for your employees and for YOU!
Tip excerpted from Positive Discipline
by Paul Sims & Eric Harvey
