The RCM Solution. Nancy Regan
In order for a working group to be effective, the most knowledgeable and experienced individuals are required. The best working group members have significant experience and understand the equipment, operating environment, operational tempo, and equipment requirements. Suppose an individual is requested to participate in an analysis and management reports it can’t afford to have that individual away for a week or two; that is confirmation that the right person has been identified. In fact, the organization can’t afford not to have the expert in the analysis.
2.6 Benefits of a Facilitated Working Group Approach
More Safe, Cost-Effective, and Technically Defensible Proactive Maintenance
The questions that RCM poses require specific and detailed answers. For example, when trying to determine an On-Condition task to monitor a V-belt for wear, a facilitator may ask a team the following question: How much time will it take from the point that visual evidence of wear on the V-belt is detectable to the time that the belt breaks? This span of time is known as the P-F interval and is discussed at length in Chapter 9. The answers to questions like this one are rarely found in historical data because this type of data usually isn’t captured and tracked. However, equipment experts–people who work with the equipment every day–are poised to answer the RCM questions most of the time. In this case, a machine operator can usually identify, for example, that it would take six months for the belt to break once cracks and frays are detectable. This is a straightforward example, but many RCM issues can be very complex, which makes it ever more important that experts are allowed to answer the questions. This ensures that the most safe, cost effective, and technically defensible proactive maintenance plan is formulated—that is, the right maintenance is done at the right time.
Results Go Far Beyond Equipment Maintenance
Because they work with the equipment on a day-to-day basis and understand the intricacies of the equipment and the operating environment, working group members understand the vulnerabilities of equipment and the associated processes that lead to equipment failure. This understanding allows them to know where the improvement opportunities are. When asked the right questions, working group members can formulate failure management strategies that go far beyond proactive maintenance (such as changes to operating procedures and updates to technical publications), allowing issues other than proactive maintenance to be addressed.
Working Group Members Learn from Each Other
As stated before, it is almost impossible for one person to know everything there is to know about an asset. Because the cumulative knowledge of a working group is so vast and varied, team members learn from each other during an analysis. Their familiarity, awareness, and understanding of the equipment and the organization grow, allowing their contribution to the organization to become even more valuable. Very often during an RCM analysis, the facilitator gets feedback from a working group member such as “wow, I’ve been working on this equipment for 20 years and I didn’t know that.” Even the most seasoned expert learns.
RCM Identifies What an Organization Doesn’t Know
Because the RCM process requires answers to detailed questions, one of its greatest strengths is that it naturally identifies what an organization doesn’t know. Gaps in information are documented so that the information can be obtained. Working group members often use experience and judgment to provide answers, but they don’t take guesses. Facilitators are trained to recognize when a working group doesn’t know and appropriate action is taken as a result. For example, an age exploration program may be recommended as a result of RCM analysis or an action item may be issued to obtain further information.
During an analysis, issues requiring additional information are parked until the answers can be found. Just as in life, it is dangerous when you don’t know what you don’t know. But there is great strength in identifying what you don’t know—information can then be obtained while issues are dealt with appropriately in the meantime. Because the right people were asked the right questions, some of the most successful RCM analyses uncover the issues that have been causing chronic unreliability.
Tribal Knowledge is Preserved
In most cases, the knowledge and experience that experts gain over the years isn’t formally recorded. So when seasoned experts retire or choose to leave an organization, often the intricacies of their know-how leave with them. Harnessing this information can be incredibly valuable to an organization. The RCM process formally extracts and documents this knowledge so that future generations of equipment experts, and thereby the organization, can benefit from it.
Reduces Human Error
Human error is a widespread problem across the world. History is riddled with fatal disasters caused by it. Equipment is often so complex that there will always be vulnerabilities present that can lead to disasters if not identified and eliminated. On the surface, it may appear that a technician is at fault, but a more detailed inspection may reveal the real cause. For example, if a component is installed backwards, the typical reaction is to blame the technician who installed it. But the backwards installation may actually be an effect of a deeper problem: the maintenance manual wrongly depicts the position of the component. In this case, the technician did the job right. The problem is that the technician was tasked with the wrong job.
Consider the following disasters caused by “human error”.
NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter Lost on September 23, 1999
The $125 million Mars orbiter was to be a key part in exploring the planet. Two engineering teams working on the project were using different units of measure—English and metric units. As a result, on September 23, 1999, the spacecraft entered a much lower orbit than was intended and the spacecraft was lost. Edward Weiler, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Space Science, said in his written statement, “The problem here was not the error. It was the failure of NASA’s systems engineering, and the checks and balance in our processes to detect the error.”
Helios Airways, Flight 522
Helios Airways, Flight 522 was a Boeing 737-300 that crashed in a hilly area 25 miles north of Athens on August 14, 2005. The aircraft underwent maintenance the night before the accident. The ground crew left a cabin pressurization setting on “manual” mode instead of “auto” mode. As a result, the cabin would not pressurize after takeoff. The crew ignored the cabin altitude warning horn, the passenger oxygen mask deployment indicator, and the master caution switch, and the aircraft continued to climb. The crew then suffered from hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation. The aircraft crashed when it ran out of fuel. All 121 people on board died.
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