Did you know that around 45% of businesses fail during their first five years? Have you heard about reliability-centered maintenance, and are wondering what exactly is it and whether your business will benefit or not? If so, you are in the right place.
Keep reading to learn the ins and outs of reliability-centered maintenance.
What Is Reliability-Centered Maintenance?
RCM is basically a process put in place to identify problems on equipment ahead of time in order to increase the equipment’s productivity. Instead of it being a maintenance method, it is more of an evaluation that is done in order to identify the maintenance methods that will work best for each piece of machinery the business has. We have more detailed info. here.
Performing an RCM Analysis
When performing an RCM analysis there are a few questions that the Society of Automotive Engineers has offered to help evaluate the equipment:
How Well Should This Equipment Perform?
The first thing to analyze is what the primary function of the machine is. Assess what the machine does and what do you want it to do. For example, if you have a machine that closes 1,000 lids in one hour and it breaks down every so often then you want to calculate how often it breaks down and how many lids it is not able to close during its downtime.
How Can This Equipment Fail?
The more a machine runs it will obviously run into more issues. You want to evaluate how your equipment can fail. For example, if it runs 24/7, it might start experiencing some signs of failure as it is nearing the end of its life.
Other common failures include manufacturing flaws, human error, or organizational strategy.
What Causes Each Failure?
When you evaluate what possible failures you might encounter with your equipment you have to determine the root cause of the failure or the potential failure. For example, if it is human error – why? Could it be that you can use more intense training?
Or if the failure was from the equipment breaking down – why? Was it poorly maintained?
What Happens When There Is a Failure?
You want to identify the effects that a machine failure will have. Think about how the failure will affect the end product and also your operating costs. When you have the answers to this you will be able to put together a plan that will eliminate high-cost repairs and unplanned downtime.
Feeling Like an RCM Pro?
We hope that now that we went over everything there is to know about reliability-centered maintenance, you can make informed decisions when it comes to your company’s equipment. The key is for your equipment to be running as best as it could be in order to keep your operation running smoothly.
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