What Is Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM)?

Where Does RCM Come From?

It’s believed that the aviation industry developed RCM in the 1960s, in response to a growing number of airplane failures and crashes.

A 1978 report sponsored by the US Department of Defense, in partnership with United Airlines, officially defines the term and outlines applications, best practices, and task types for RCM. The 515-page report includes a decision diagram to determine how to apply specific maintenance tasks to various types of equipment.

Today, numerous industries use RCM to prioritize and assign scheduled maintenance tasks.

How Does RCM Analysis Work?

RCM analysis is the study of an asset’s potential failures and their root causes. The information gathered during this analysis provides the framework for you to successfully develop your RCM reliability program.

Since not every asset is critical to your organization and not every failure is catastrophic, the RCM analysis helps you identify:

• Functional failures, or when equipment fails to perform as expected. This is different from absolute failure because it can also include problems like unexpected slowdowns, production errors, and other issues that impact your organization’s ability to meet production quality and quantity.
• Impact of failures, which helps you identify how serious equipment failures are and how important it is to avoid them. If the failure has no impact on typical operations, it’s not a good candidate for RCM maintenance. On the other hand, if the failure has serious downstream consequences, the next step is to identify the failure modes and the resulting action you need to take to avoid the failure.
• Identify failure modes,which is the final step in RCM analysis. This process helps teams identify ways to prevent each type of failure.

What Is an RCM Strategy For? Industry Professionals Define RCM As:

• “The best way to develop a maintenance improvement program.”– A. M. Smith
• A process that “uses a cross-functional team to develop a complete maintenance strategy designed to ensure inherent design reliability for a process or piece of equipment.” – Doug Plucknette
• A way “to identify components whose functional failures can cause unwanted consequences to one’s plant or facility.” – Neil Bloom

Why RCM Is Important for Maintenance, Repair, and Operations

Maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) includes all the maintenance that needs to be done throughout an organization. It includes everything from changing tires on company vehicles to lubricating assets and replacing light bulbs.

Reliability centered maintenance helps your team prioritize the MRO tasks that need to be completed. The RCM analysis helps identify the most critical assets and which of the four maintenance strategies a team should use to keep assets working effectively for as long as possible.

Once the RCM analysis provides this information, the maintenance team then knows what work needs to be done and how often. They can also prioritize tasks based on importance. This allows teams to perform preventive maintenance in the most effective way possible, without adding unnecessary maintenance tasks.

See how eMaint CMMS helped NTT Global Data Centers Americas prevent $100,000/second in SLA penalties.

What Are the Basic Principles of Reliability Centered Maintenance?

A successful Reliability Centered Maintenance program:

1. Is scoped and structured to preserve system function. Instead of focusing on asset preservation, it focuses on preserving asset functionality.
2. Identifies failure modes. Failure modes encompass the ways something might fail. Failures are any errors or defects, especially ones that affect the customer. These can be potential failures or actual failures that occurred previously.
3. Addresses failure modes by importance. The most critical failures should be prioritized above other failures.
4. Selects the appropriate maintenance tasks. Defines applicable maintenance task candidates and selects the most effective one in the case of important failure modes.

How Is RCM Different From Standard Maintenance Programs?

Reliability centered maintenance differs from other types of maintenance because it focuses on personalizing maintenance for each asset and improving reliability. Each asset and its potential failures are analyzed in depth, and a type of maintenance is chosen that best aligns with the asset’s criticality and the organization’s needs. RCM maintenance doesn’t involve implementing a sweeping maintenance program across the organization; instead, the maintenance methods are carefully selected and may not be the same for every asset or even for every function of an asset.

There are several maintenance strategies, and each can be effective in its own way. Run to failure, corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance, and predictive maintenance are some of the other maintenance strategies.

Here’s a brief overview of other types of maintenance:

Run-to-Failure Maintenance (Reactive Maintenance)

Run-to-failure maintenance runs an asset until it fails before performing maintenance or replacing parts. While this may work well for certain non-critical assets, it can have disastrous consequences when used as a strategy for critical assets.

Corrective Maintenance

This type of maintenance involves performing maintenance or repairs on equipment when technicians notice an issue during an inspection or other maintenance. While the equipment hasn’t failed yet, the identified issue may lead to failure if it’s not corrected. This involves planning and performing regularly scheduled maintenance to extend equipment lifespan and help avoid unplanned downtime. It works well for certain types of assets, such as those that need maintenance based on usage time or the calendar. It can involve tasks like changing filters, performing lubrication, or replacing certain parts.

Preventive maintenance involves planning and performing regularly scheduled maintenance to extend equipment lifespan and help avoid unplanned downtime. It works well for certain types of assets, such as those that need maintenance based on usage time or the calendar. It can involve tasks like changing filters, performing lubrication, or replacing certain parts.

Predictive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance (PdM) uses sensors to help predict when an asset may need maintenance or be nearing failure. For example, vibration or temperature sensors on the equipment may connect to a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) and notify users when vibrations or temperatures are abnormal, indicating that the asset requires maintenance. This is effective for critical assets that would cause a major disruption if allowed to fail.

Each of these maintenance methods could be chosen for an asset or function after RCM is put into place. Organizations that use RCM maintenance also implement continuous improvement, meaning that the maintenance method or schedule will be continuously changed to ensure the best outcomes.

The Impact of Poor Maintenance Reliability

A complete RCM strategy gives organizations the confidence that their equipment will remain reliable over time. On the other hand, companies with insufficient maintenance efforts often have poor equipment reliability and become vulnerable to a variety of issues, including:

Increased Wear and Tear

Performing fewer preventive maintenance tasks can effectively increase the operating age of your assets and equipment. Relying on run-to-failure means parts get dirtier and worn more quickly. And in many cases, they’ll break down more frequently than a properly-maintained machine, which adds additional damage to the asset.

Frequent Equipment Failures

When maintenance teams don’t routinely inspect and service parts and equipment, assets are more likely to fail. And since these teams aren’t likely to catch potential failures before they occur, the damage may be more catastrophic, requiring full replacement instead of simple repairs.

Unsafe, Noncompliant Facilities

Improperly-maintained equipment can be dangerous. Heavy equipment failures and malfunctioning moving parts create an unsafe environment for your workers. Leaks, spills, and potential fires can create environmental and health issues that spread beyond the facility. Further, noncompliance can lead to hefty fines.

More Downtime

More failing assets means more unplanned downtime — in more ways than one. You’ll experience a greater number of asset failures, and emergency maintenance activities typically take longer to perform. If fixing a failure requires parts that you don’t have on hand, you lose even more uptime waiting on inventory restocks.

Reduced Productivity

Repair time compromises the production process. It also demands more time per asset from your maintenance team, reducing availability for your preventive maintenance program and proactive tasks.

Higher Maintenance Costs

Increased downtime, more emergency maintenance, and more frequent replacement of equipment and parts all add up to higher maintenance costs. While preventive maintenance may require more investment upfront, it quickly pays for itself with more inherent reliability — meaning less emergency maintenance and fewer asset replacements.

Lower Profits

Reduced productivity and higher maintenance costs hurt your margins, resulting in lower profits. It can be difficult to recover from this, especially if you’re unable to predict the next breakdown.

Examples of RCM Across Industries

Reliability-centered maintenance is used in any industry affected by costly downtime caused by asset failures. Some industries that may use RCM maintenance include:

• Automotive: Historical data and trend analysis help identify dominant failure modes so that teams can modify equipment maintenance and fleet management strategies accordingly.
• Aviation: Believed to be the origin of RCM, the aviation industry benefits from custom maintenance plans for each aircraft component. Avoiding both overperformance of unnecessary tasks and overreliance on emergency maintenance keeps more planes in the air.
• Food and beverage: Leading companies maximize compliance, health and safety, product and packaging quality, and productivity with a plant maintenance program based on individual asset requirements.
• Medical device and equipment manufacturers: RCM helps industry leaders maintain high-quality standards for life-saving medical products by organizing maintenance activities based on reliability. As a result, teams see less downtime and can handily manage quality control and compliance.
• Oil and gas: Equipment failures in the oil and gas industry can be catastrophic for facilities, employees, communities, and the environment. Teams can prioritize safety and sustainability by developing maintenance solutions for the most critical failure modes.
• Packaging: Production line failures can wreak havoc on key objectives. RCM distributes maintenance resources based on need, resulting in simplified maintenance planning and improved efficiency to meet quotas.
• Pharmaceuticals: Not all failure modes shut down equipment. But in the pharmaceutical industry, even small deviations have huge consequences. Companies use RCM to keep critical assets and materials safe and compliant, creating safer products.
• Facilities management: Maintenance schedules for varied equipment such as elevators, HVAC systems, and alarms shouldn’t be identical. With RCM, facility managers can choose sensible maintenance tasks based on equipment type, criticality, and potential failure modes.
• Energy and utilities: EPA and OSHA set strict standards for the energy industry, so maintenance in this industry can be complex. The RCM process lets utility companies create unique task intervals based on each asset’s compliance needs.

These types of companies, and many others, use RCM to plan maintenance and ensure that critical assets perform as expected.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Reliability Centered Maintenance

The goals of RCM include the ability to evaluate, categorize, prioritize, and understand how to intervene in the impact of failures. Ultimately, by performing RCM analysis, your organization will develop unique maintenance schedules for each critical asset.

This effective maintenance strategy yields key advantages, including:

• Cost savings: Selecting maintenance strategies specifically for each asset ensures assets aren’t over-maintained.
• Improved asset longevity: When assets are properly maintained, the asset lifecycle can be extended.
• Improved performance: The RCM maintenance plan looks at asset functions and is implemented to improve upon existing functionality. This produces increased performance and safety.
• Improved decisions: With the data and insight gained from RCM maintenance schedules, decision-makers can make better choices about what type of maintenance to perform or whether to replace assets.

While reliability-centered maintenance has many advantages, it has its disadvantages as well:

• Extensive setup time: It takes a significant amount of time to analyze each potential failure and implement the correct maintenance plan to mitigate the most critical failures. This is especially true for companies that don’t have historical maintenance records to reference.
• Complexity: With different assets on different maintenance plans, it can be difficult to keep track of what each asset needs.
• Continuous improvement: Even after investing the time to create the initial RCM maintenance strategy, schedules need to be continuously adjusted and improved to have the greatest impact on functionality.

Successful implementation of an RCM maintenance process, coupled with CMMS software, will increase cost-effectiveness, asset reliability, and equipment uptime. An RCM maintenance program can enhance your organization’s understanding of risk and improve decision-making, especially when coupled with other proactive maintenance strategies such as risk-based maintenance. Maintenance is not a one-size-fits-all practice, and a reliability-centered maintenance program involves a detailed and tailored analysis.

How To Run a Reliability Centered Maintenance Program

There are three phases of a reliability centered maintenance program, and seven steps within these phases to ensure the program is fully implemented. The three phases are decision, analysis, and act.

Phase I: Decision

Justification and planning based on need, readiness, and desired outcomes.

Step 1: Reliability Centered Maintenance Analysis Preparation

Reliability centered maintenance analysis is only as effective as the team behind it. The most effective cross-functional teams include maintenance employees, project leaders, subject matter experts, and even executive leadership.

Additionally, documenting procedures and your project plan can be vital to keeping your team on track. The beginning of an RCM project is a great time to outline your organizational goals, project management concerns, budget and timeline, and potential obstacles.

Step 2: Select Equipment for Reliability Centered Maintenance Analysis

Equipment selected for RCM analysis should be critical to operations, subject to the cost of repair vs. cost to replace debate, and included in previous spending on preventive maintenance. To select the best equipment for RCM analysis, answer these questions:

• Could failure be difficult to detect during normal operation and maintenance?
• Could failure affect safety?
• Could failure significantly impact operations?
• Could failure significantly impact spending?

If the answer is yes to most or all of these questions, RCM is likely the best type of maintenance for that asset.

Step 3: Identify Functionality

Create a complete list of a piece of equipment’s functionality, including as much data as possible. It is important to specify your desired asset performance levels, rather than actual performance, as it may reflect an operational or maintenance issue. System functionality drives the required functions of the equipment supporting the system functions.

Phase II: Analysis

Conduct the reliability centered maintenance study in a way that provides a high-quality output.

Step 4: Identify Functional Failures

Functional failure is the inability of an asset or system to meet acceptable standards of performance. Failures can encompass poor performance, overperformance, performing unnecessary or unintended functions, or complete failure. For example, when a motor bearing is failing due to a lack of lubrication, a total functional failure would entail the motor not rotating and the motor failing to function.

Step 5: Identify and Evaluate the Effects of Failures

Next, your team should document what actually happens when failures occur. What can be observed? What is the impact of the failure on production? Is there a significant safety impact?

Step 6: Identify Failure Modes

Once you identify your equipment and systematic functional failures, failure modes must be considered. One of the most common techniques to approach discovering failure modes is Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). FMEA is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a design, a manufacturing or assembly process, or a product or service. Understanding the effects of failure involves asking questions such as:

• • What are the safety concerns with this failure?
  • What impact does this failure have on operation/production?
  • Does this failure mode result in full or partial outages?

A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) offers automation tools that reduce missing scheduled work and equipment failures, making PM optimization as efficient and streamlined as possible. PM Task Generation, PM Scheduling, and Inspections features facilitate continuous improvement and can support your organization’s preventive maintenance program.

Phase III: Act

Act on the study’s recommendations to update asset and maintenance systems, procedures, and design improvements.

Step 7: Select Maintenance Tasks

At this point, the most appropriate maintenance action can be identified based on the failure mode information. Failure management techniques can be grouped into two categories:

• Proactive tasks:Preventive and predictive maintenance techniques are performed to prevent equipment or system failure. Preventive maintenance is calendar or usage-based and helps to reduce the risk of failure, while predictive maintenance can detect the failure before it begins. Predictive maintenance is also known as condition monitoring.
• Default actions:Reactive maintenance, or firefighting mode, deals with failures after the fact. Run-to-failure maintenance is a tactic where equipment is run until it fails, and then work is performed. A classic example of a component commonly run to failure is a lightbulb.

Selecting the right strategy for failure management is rooted in an understanding of failure modes, criticality of equipment, and the economic impact of failure.

5 Requirements for Implementing an RCM Program

An effective reliability-centered maintenance strategy requires the right people and processes to identify and resolve failure patterns, prioritize the right maintenance strategies, and create optimal operating conditions. To succeed, you’ll need the following:

1. A strong track record with preventive maintenance strategies: RCM can be complex, creating difficulties for plants and maintenance workers unfamiliar with proactive strategies. Ensure your team has a thorough understanding of preventive maintenance before onboarding RCM.
2. A clear primary objective: Why are you planning to introduce RCM? What do you hope to achieve? For transparency, clarity, and success, outline and communicate your primary objective before implementation.
3. A realistic maintenance budget: RCM reduces maintenance costs overall — however, you must prepare for substantial upfront costs. It’s time-consuming and expensive to train teams, collect maintenance feedback, conduct failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), perform new and frequent repairs, and make adjustments to your maintenance program. To see the payoff, you have to withstand the initial expenses.
4. Team bandwidth: Initially, RCM demands a significant investment of time and resources. Can your team size and bandwidth accommodate those needs? Whether reallocating resources, pausing other projects, or hiring new team members,  be ready for this commitment before you start.
5. Team knowledge and skills: Is your maintenance team deeply familiar with the operating conditions of your physical assets? What about your production and maintenance processes? Successful implementation of RCM requires engaged, skillful, and knowledgeable maintenance teams — even when hiring outside consultants for onboarding.

With these five requirements in place, you’re less likely to abandon your RCM initiatives and more prepared to succeed.

What Are the 7 RCM Questions?

Evaluation Criteria for Reliability Centered Maintenance (SAE JA1011) identifies key criteria for RCM processes. The subsequent publication, A Guide to the Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) Standard (SAE JA1012), builds on these criteria with greater specificity. SAE JA1012 identifies the basic requirements a program must meet before it is truly an RCM program. It begins with these seven questions:

• What is the item supposed to do, and what are its associated performance standards?
• In what ways can it fail to provide the required functions?
• What are the events that cause each failure?
• What happens when each failure occurs?
• In what way does each failure matter?
• What systematic tasks can be performed proactively to prevent or diminish the consequences of the failure?
• What must be done if a suitable preventive task cannot be found?

Other Key Questions That You Need To Ask To Begin RCM

Before starting a reliability centered maintenance program, you want to make sure the program aligns with organizational goals, resources, and operational needs. Here are some key questions to consider:

• What are the primary goals of implementing an RCM program?
• How does RCM maintenance align with the company’s overall strategy and vision?
• What is the current approach to maintenance (reactive, preventive, predictive, or a combination)?
• What are the main challenges or problems with the current maintenance process?
• How are maintenance tasks currently prioritized and scheduled?
• What data is currently available on equipment performance, failure rates, and downtime?
• Is there a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)or similar tool in place to track maintenance activities?
• Who will be responsible for leading the RCM initiative, and is the leadership team aligned with the program goals?
• Will reporting and analyticsbe available to measure the effectiveness of the RCM program (KPIs like mean time between failures, downtime reduction, etc.)?
• What is the allocated budget for the RCM program?

Addressing these questions will help your organization establish a solid foundation for creating an RCM maintenance strategy that aligns with your overall organizational goals and fits within its budget.

What Makes an RCM Reliability Centered Maintenance Program Successful?

A successful reliability centered maintenance program requires a combination of proper planning, execution, and ongoing evaluation to continuously improve your processes. Here are a few things you can do to ensure your program is successful:

• Define success metrics upfront: Set measurable goals like reducing downtime, extending asset lifespan, or lowering maintenance costs to track if your program is successful by company standards.
• Align with business priorities: Ensure the program supports organizational objectives, such as operational efficiency, safety, or compliance.
• Perform comprehensive asset analysis: Identify which assets are the most critical and prioritize them in maintenance.
• Use data-driven decision-making: Use maintenance records, equipment performance data, and failure history to guide strategies.
• Tailor strategy to each asset’s needs: Combine predictive, preventive, and condition-based maintenance where appropriate.
• Equip your team: Provide training for personnel about reliability centered maintenance and how to use diagnostic tools and technologies to move towards a Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) strategy.
• Add technology: Tools like vibration analyzers and temperature monitoring devices can provide additional insight into equipment status, saving valuable time and helping your maintenance team focus on the most important tasks.
• Continuously improve: Perform regular reviews and updates to make sure your reliability centered maintenance strategy works as intended. Make adjustments as necessary and continue to refine your strategy over time.

Reliability Centered Maintenance Implementation With a CMMS

A properly implemented CMMS can support the RCM process. CMMS software helps maintenance programs develop goals for cost tracking, benchmark data, and monitor the bottom line.

For example, with eMaint reporting and analytics dashboards, organizations can easily and consistently document work order history, failures, costs, and trends. A CMMS collects and centralizes the data you need to perform the analyses that reliability centered maintenance requires.