Implementation
of a
Reliability Centered Maintenance
or RCM program begins with a solid and practical Preventive
Maintenance (PM) program. Implementing a PM program requires a
critical and in-depth review of the operations and equipment within
the business. An overview of an actual implementation follows.
A manufacturing business with 2,400
employees in four plants had over 3,000 pieces of production equipment
ranging from instrumentation and state-of-the-art, sophisticated
machining centers to 100 year old forge presses. Virtually all
maintenance was done in a reactive mode: If something broke, Maintenance
was informed and a craftsman was assigned to facilitate the necessary
repairs. The company implemented very successful PM, PdM, and RCM
programs coupled with a continuous improvement program and a
computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), over a period of less
than four years.
One of the first programs identified,
as a necessary foundation from which to build, was a solid and practical
PM program. The initial program took nine months to develop and began
with the assignment of individuals to a PM task team. Individuals were
chosen from maintenance supervision, maintenance planning, and the
trades for the nine-person team.
Initially, the team looked at
segregating the business operations into four major groupings:
1) Government-owned equipment
2) Safety-related equipment
3) Facilities equipment
4) Manufacturing equipment
This company was a government
contractor, and, as such, utilized some Government-owned equipment in
its manufacturing process. The requirements of maintaining this type of
equipment are quite specific. Hence, PM’s were critical on this
equipment due to contractual issues.
Once the four major groupings were
defined, they were prioritized with the most critical grouping being
Government-owned followed by safety-related, facilities, and
manufacturing. With over 3,000 separate pieces of equipment to maintain,
the implementation of a comprehensive PM program appeared daunting at
first. The plan, however, was to break down the implementation into
manageable bites. The team decided, once the four major groupings were
identified, that only the critical equipment in each grouping would be
put on the PM program initially. The total number of pieces of equipment
initially were limited to 250 pieces.
The finalized PM work order
instructions for each of the 250 pieces in the core PM program were
completed, and the maintenance planners developed a schedule for which
PMs would be done and when during the calendar year. The maintenance
planners leveled the PM work orders throughout the year to allow for a
relative level loading of man-hours on a weekly basis.
In the following two and a half years,
all of the equipment in the plants was added to the PM program with a
total of over 3,000 within a little over three years from the inception
of the PM program. The format used for PM work instruction development
was followed on subsequent equipment additions to the program. New
equipment to the plant operations utilized the manufacturer’s
recommendations until such time as sufficient experience was gained by
Maintenance to adjust the PM work instructions and frequencies. The
intent was not to have a static PM program, but insure it was dynamic to
meet the changing business needs coupled with the experience gained in
maintaining the equipment.
As the traditional PM program was
developed, additional predictive maintenance (PdM) methodologies were
implemented for appropriate equipment such as lubrication analysis,
thermography, vibration analysis, etc. The PM program coupled with PdM
and the data accumulated with a CMMS allowed maintenance to enter RCM.
Reliability Centered Maintenance addresses the root cause of problems
rather than just production reliability. Typically, organizations do not
see the benefits of RCM initially, and, rather, see it as an additional
and unnecessary expense to the business since benefits are not
immediately noticeable.
For instance, some equipment may be
taken out of service more frequently or for longer periods than prior to
RCM. This translates into reduced availability to operations in the
initial phase. However, the intent in doing so is to identify and
address the root causes of failures thereby improving the cost
effectiveness of equipment to the business. In other words, the
equipment will operate more reliably long term over the traditional PM
program.
LUBRICATION PROGRAM:
This business realized it did not have the resources in-house to
implement and maintain an effective lubrication program in the areas of
program development, people to do the work, and equipment to analyze and
monitor. The decision was made to contract with an outside source to
implement and manage the entire program.
The lubrication program followed a similar implementation strategy as
the PM program. Only certain critical equipment was selected to be
included in the initial start-up of the program. Equipment was selected
in part due to its criticality to the business, redundancy of equipment
(such as three of dozens of similar machining centers), historical
problems which appeared to be lubrication-oriented, and of such a nature
to test the resources of the lubrication vendor.
Once equipment was identified, the
lubrication vendor conducted a thorough analysis of each piece of
equipment to determine its current state. Recommendations were made to
the business as to the correct lubricants and coolants to use for each
application. The lubrication vendor assumed full responsibility for the
lubrication requirements including sample collection, analysis,
reporting, monitoring, recommendations to the business for maintenance
on the equipment relative to lubrication, training of the business’s
employees in the proper methods to lubricate equipment, etc.
THERMOGRAPHY: A
thermography program was developed, concentrating on the electrical
substations and switchgear initially for the four plants. The program
was developed by the plant electrical engineer. Actual thermographic
monitoring was contracted out to a vendor with the expertise and
equipment necessary to do effective thermography.
The results of the thermographic
studies, conducted as part of the PM program, were translated into
planned maintenance work orders for completion as scheduled by the
maintenance planners. Much of the work on substations and switchgear was
scheduled for annual plant shutdown outages unless it was indicated that
the problems had to be addressed sooner.
VIBRATION ANALYSIS:
Vibration was measured on selected equipment due to its criticality to
the business and high rotating speeds. Air compressors were the primary
equipment monitored by the plants.
The data collected from these programs
along with data from other sources, such as the Instrumentation and
Calibration Program, were feed into the CMMS as the central repository.
Access to the data was not limited to any individuals or job positions.
However, only selected people were authorized to make entries or change
any data to insure system integrity.
Process Improvement Teams were formed
within maintenance with representatives from the trades and staff of
maintenance. The teams were trained in Continuous Improvement and
process improvement techniques including:
• Data Collection
• Data Evaluation
• Problem Solving
• Statistical Process Control
• Control Charts
• Pareto Charts
• Histograms
• Failure Rate Run Charts
• Failure Rate vs. Maintenance Costs
• Weibul Analysis
• Mean Time Between Failures
• Root Cause Failure Analysis
Utilizing the results obtained allowed
the PM and PdM programs to be tailored specifically to the operating
conditions of the equipment. In addition, problem solving identified the
root causes for the most common and most expensive failures of
equipment. Operating expense savings were realized with RCM along with
an increase in manufacturing equipment uptime.
In addition to comprehensive PM, PdM,
and RCM programs and process improvement teams, the involvement of
people from all levels within Maintenance dramatically increased the
collection and utilization of good data within the CMMS. Additionally,
the craftsmen and salaried people within Maintenance increased their
knowledge and use of the CMMS. An additional off-shoot was the interest
in the data collected in the CMMS by people in organizations outside of
maintenance, such as Finance, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Engineering,
Environmental-Health-Safety, etc. who saw an additional resource
available to them to assist them in their daily jobs.
A preventive maintenance program,
properly designed, implemented, and utilized, is critical for any
Maintenance organization trying to move into the world class category.
It is, also, a critical success factor for Reliability Centered
Maintenance. Success for this business was dependent upon the proper
identification and utilization of outside resources, training, and team
facilitation throughout the processes in this case study.
