Reliability-centered Maintenance (RCM) is an essential pillar in supporting asset management systems, as emphasized by ISO 55000. By ensuring the reliability of industrial assets is aligned with both short- and long-term corporate objectives, RCM directly connects asset performance to the business value chain, safeguarding the critical functions that drive revenue.
However, despite these benefits, many organizations encounter challenges due to organizational gaps, as I’ve highlighted in previous posts. These gaps often lead to attempts to reduce the time and resources needed for a full RCM process, giving rise to what’s known as ‘streamlined’ RCM. It’s critical to remember that no streamlined RCM approach complies with SAE RCM standards.
In my last post, I discussed Generic Analysis Approaches. Today, I’ll focus on another common issue: the use of Generic Lists of Failure Modes.
Generic Lists of Failure Modes
These lists—sometimes including entire FMEAs, even design FMEAs—are often created by third parties. While they may cover entire systems, more often, they only focus on single assets or components.
There are several key drawbacks to relying on these lists:
Inappropriate depth of analysis: The level of ‘drilling down’ into failure modes (i.e., the number of times the analyst asked ‘why’) is unlikely to be sufficient for your specific needs.
Different operating contexts: Your operating context almost certainly differs from that used to generate the generic list, leading to different failure modes.
Divergent performance standards: The standards used to define ‘failure’ in the generic list may differ from those applicable to your assets.
These points highlight that if generic lists are used at all, they should only ever supplement a context-specific FMEA, not replace it. They should never be treated as a definitive list.
A common pitfall in this approach is the tendency to skip the crucial function definition stage and jump straight into listing failure modes. This happens either because defining functions is seen as a ‘waste of time’ or because the importance of function definition is not understood. However, this can severely degrade the quality of the analysis for the following reasons:
Failure to understand functions: Without a clear understanding of functions, it’s impossible to properly assess consequences or select appropriate tasks. Skipping this step compromises the technical integrity of the entire analysis.
Missed performance improvement opportunities: In many cases, the greatest opportunities to enhance plant performance come from the function definition stage, where you can identify where the desired performance exceeds the system’s actual capabilities. Skipping this step may save time, but it sacrifices significant potential benefits.
In my next post, I’ll explore the common pitfall of focusing only on ‘Critical’ Equipment Analysis.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights!
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