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STREAMLINED RCM: A Critical Perspective - Part 1

Kleber Siqueira

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of helping companies implement true Reliability-centered Maintenance (RCM)—namely, RCM2 and RCM SAE JA1011/JA1012—across various industries, including manufacturing, oil and gas (both offshore and onshore), petrochemicals, and chemicals, in Brazil and internationally. The results? A rapid and tangible return on investment when RCM is applied as recommended by SAE standards.


RCM is a cornerstone in supporting asset management systems, as endorsed by ISO 55000, ensuring that the reliability of industrial assets is strategically aligned with both short- and long-term corporate goals. In essence, RCM links asset performance directly to the core business value chain, safeguarding critical industrial functions that ultimately drive corporate revenues.


However, despite these significant benefits, many organizations still struggle due to an organizational gap, which I’ve discussed in recent posts. As a result, they often attempt to cut down on the time and resources required for a thorough RCM process, leading to what's commonly known as ‘streamlined’ RCM. It’s crucial to emphasize that no form of streamlined RCM complies with the SAE RCM standards. More importantly, RCM isn't just about creating maintenance plans—it’s about developing comprehensive reliability strategies that encompass much more.


In RCM, 'maintenance' refers to maintaining functions, not just individual components, and 'assets' include systems critical to production processes, which are responsible for generating outputs—and ultimately revenue.


The six common types of ‘streamlined’ RCM approaches are:


- Retroactive approaches

- Generic analyses

- Use of generic lists of failure modes

- Skipping parts of the process

- Analyzing only ‘critical’ functions or failures

- Analyzing only critical equipment


Retroactive Approaches


This post focuses on retroactive approaches. These start with existing maintenance tasks and then work backwards to identify the failure modes these tasks are supposed to prevent. This method is often called “backfit” RCM or “RCM in reverse.”


These approaches are particularly risky for several reasons:


- They assume, often incorrectly, that existing maintenance programs cover all likely failure modes.

- It’s difficult to pinpoint the specific failure mode that led to the selection of a particular task.

- You still need to identify functions to ask key consequence assessment and task selection questions.

- They’re notably weak when it comes to specifying maintenance for protective devices.

- The focus is often on reducing maintenance workloads rather than improving plant performance, leading to poor financial returns.


In my next post, I’ll dive into the remaining five approaches. I welcome your thoughts and comments below.


 
Kleber Siqueira | NAVITAS Consulting


















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