Reliability-centered maintenance

Decision Type: Prevention

Method Category: Assurance, Maintain high reliability throughout life

Categories: Methods

A logical discipline for developing a scheduled-maintenance program that will realize the inherent reliability levels of complex equipment at minimum cost. RCM provides a framework to organize maintenance activities within an organization.

Consequences of failure
The results of a given functional failure at the equipment level and for the operating organization, classified in RCM analysis as safety consequences, operational consequences, nonoperational consequences, and hidden-failure consequences.
Decision diagram
In RCM analysis, a graphic display of the decision process, in which the answers to an ordered sequence of yes/no questions lead to an identification of the appropriate maintenance action for an item.
Discard task
The scheduled removal of all units of an item to discard the item or one of its parts at a specified life limit; one of the four basic tasks in an RCM program.
Failure-finding task
" Scheduled inspections of a hidden-function item to find functional failures that have already occurred but were not evident to the operating personnel; one of the four basic tasks in an RCM program."
Hidden-failure consequences
The risk of a multiple failure as a result of an undetected earlier failure of a hidden-function item; one of the four consequence branches of the RCM decision diagram.

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