RCM Success - Difficult Decisions

There is nothing I enjoy more than getting a new customer started with a successful Reliability Centered Maintenance effort. The work and instruction that goes with setting a solid foundation that one can build on over time to improve reliability, reduce costs, and reduce the likelihood of health, safety and environmental incidents and accidents is well worth the reward as we see RCM drive a change in business culture.

What some companies fail to recognize however is setting this solid foundation requires a fair amount of expert level leadership, a proven plan or methodology and unrelenting trust in the people and methodology you have selected to help your company create this effort.
In my fifteen years of providing RCM Blitz™ to customers around the world the one thing our most successful customers all have in common is the ability to recognize that when it comes to providing RCM facilitation services as well as training, mentoring and certifying RCM facilitators, it is our people who have the expertise in RCM and it is their people who are the experts in business we are working in.

Building a world-class RCM effort requires a partnership between the company hiring the service and the company providing the service and the process will only work if the two companies work together to achieve a common goal. At GPAllied we understand that each customer we work with has a unique culture and for each company we work with to create a successful RCM effort we take the time up-front to work with their people to build solid foundation based on proven RCM principals. Good RCM is all about discipline, from defining how you intend to identify assets for analysis, to implementing and managing your new maintenance strategy.
Building a reputation of success not only comes with customers who have proven and sustained RCM efforts, your reputation also comes from what you refuse to do. While the consulting business can sometimes look easy, the toughest decisions we have to make are those where we elect to walk away from a potential customer based on their unwillingness to work as a true partner. At times there is nothing more difficult than stating the facts and refusing to move forward based on your own guiding principles.

Some of our most successful and long standing customers I'm sure can relate to times they have requested to begin a new RCM analysis only to hear me ask the question “How much of the last RCM we just completed has been implemented?” If the answer is less than 80% I will refuse to schedule the next event. Others have scoffed when I call a week prior to their planned analysis and remind them that if the information requested in the RCM contract is not available when I arrive, the analysis will not start.

But, for the growing number of companies who now understand what solid RCM foundation looks like and what a world-class RCM effort brings to their business, they celebrate the values, principals and discipline that are delivered with success.

If you’re looking for short cuts, you’re knocking on the wrong door. If you’re looking for a methodology that delivers proven results, give us a call!

A State of Confusion

I'm beginning to have a love/hate relationship with the internet. The technology that allowed me to launch my business and build a brand name for RCM Blitz™ has in recent years become a place where there is so much information it has become difficult for people to find good information.

Add to this the bombardment of information and misinformation that comes from social media sites like linkedin, AMP and facebook and we now have a problem of making sure that the people who want information in regard to Reliability Centered Maintenance or Reliability Tools get good information.

As an example, just today I was reading through a discussion some folks were having in regard to a post in AMP titled; definition of Proactive Maintenance. As it turns out, it is quite clear that as an industry the field of maintenance and reliability has no standard definitions to terms we pass around like candy on Halloween. Looking at the ten or twelve people who made an attempt to define proactive maintenance it would seem that there are at least 6 different definitions. And, when I say different, we are talking really different.

Joe M. believes that Proactive Maintenance is work we do before something fails.

Steve P. thinks proactive maintenance is PdM.

Leslie M. says Proactive maintenance is using reliability tools like RCM and TPM to identify failures and eliminate them through precision maintenance or redesign.

Jared D. in firm in his stance that proactive maintenance includes everything listed so far.

Doug P. - the wise guy says I don't like the word proactive, it’s over used so he would prefer we just say he believes in a complete maintenance strategy based on failure modes. Big Help!

If the dialog wasn't confusing enough contribution number 14 comes in and states; "I have no idea why anyone would build a maintenance strategy around failure modes, after all a failure mode is a symptom or how we observe failure".

My blood pressure is rising because what Mr. 14 has described is a failure effect.

Where in the world would someone come up with such a definition for the word failure mode?

The answer to this question as simple, just Google search the term Failure Mode and look at the results!

Wikkipedia defines failure mode as "•Failure causes are defects in design, process, quality, or part application, which are the underlying cause of the failure or which initiate a process which leads to failure"

R.Black from Sqablogs.com uses this definition "•A particular way, in terms of symptoms, behaviors, or internal state changes, in which a failure manifests itself. For example, a heat dissipation problem in a CPU might cause a laptop case to melt or warp, or memory mismanagement might cause a core dump."

Bingo!

Hello??? Is anyone listening??? Where the heck did these definitions come from?

Let me make this clear, if you ever want the definition to a term that as used as part of RCM, please consult the original RCM document authored by F. Stanley Nowlan and Howard S. Heap.

Nowlan and Heap's definition of failure mode, "The specific manner of failure; the circumstances or sequence of events that lead to functional failure."

Does that sound like a failure effect to you?

Of course NOT!

Does the definition make sense?

Yes, and this might be because Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap knew a little about RCM before they began writing about it. When it comes the the world wide web, the only experience needed is you need to be able to open a site like wikkipedia and enter a definition. And, when it comes to a term that is seldom used and industry specific, you can pretty much define it anyway you want. No experience necessary!

When it comes to RCM I know from experience how important it is to get things right the first time; so, tonight I find myself once again paging through the web wondering how to calm the state of confusion!

RCM Blitz.com -----> Gearing up for Growth

I have to say I am excited about the future of RCM Blitz, we have just launched our new and improved RCM Blitz website www.rcmblitz.com where our customers and those still learning about RCM Blitz can click in and learn about what is new with our RCM Blitz and also communicate with our practitioners in regard to their ongoing RCM effort.

So what is new and exciting?

Let's start with the RCM Blitz Blog. In the past I have been blogging here at the RCM Blitz blogspot page, in the very near future the two sites will be linked, my library of blogs will available at the site and down eventually the blog will be located full time on the RCM Blitz site. One of the great things about the RCM Blitz blog is it allows me to communicate with our customers and practitioners in regard to process improvements, the wins we are having with our customers on a regular basis and most important it is a great venue to learn about good Reliability Centered Maintenance practices.

How about Public Training events?

In the past we have provided public RCM Blitz training events on a as needed basis. The new site will allow our company and our customers to plan and schedule RCM Blitz public training events around the world months in advance. Finding a RCM Blitz public event will no longer involve searching on-line for locations or contacts, simply click on the public events link at the bottom of the home page and the information you need to locate and register will be available on-line.

Learn about our Facilitators

Training a good RCM Facilitator takes time, training a RCM Blitz facilitator takes time, leadership, patience, discipline and experience. Look through and read about the experience of GPAllied's RCM facilitators and you will find a crew of people with years of actual hands on experience in, maintenance, engineering, management, reliability, safety, quality, lean manufacturing and leadership. A group of people who challenge one another on a regular basis, a group trained to expect and accept nothing but the best when it comes to RCM facilitations. Each person in this group has had extensive training and mentoring in the RCM Blitz process and each has achieved and sustained certification as RCM Blitz Facilitators.

Case Studies

At the time of launch we are showing just one case study on the site as we are waiting on signatures from several others to share the stories of success. I look forward to sharing our success stories on a regular basis!

So today I am asking you all if you would, take some time and look at the new and improved RCMBlitz.com!

The Two Faces of RCM - Getting Things Started With RCM Blitz

I had a conference call this morning with some potential clients in regard to rolling out a RCM Blitz™ effort. The sad thing about Reliability Centered Maintenance is the reputation the tool has acquired over the last 40 years has one of two faces.

The sad, tragic and more popular face is that if the Resource Consuming Monster. The reputation that RCM is too detailed, that it takes too long, and that by the time you finish your analysis there are no recourses and there is no money left for implementation. According to a survey conducted on ReliabilityWeb.com nearly 70% of all RCM implementations fail, with statistics like this, it is a wonder the tool still exists.

The second face of RCM is one of success. This is the Reliability Centered Maintenance that F. Stanley Nowlan and Howard S. Heap introduced the world to in 1978. The RCM process that improves equipment and process reliability while reducing health, safety and environmental incidents and accidents.

This is also the face of Reliability Centered Maintenance we introduce our customers to when they commit to training RCM Blitz™ facilitators or invite one of our facilitators in to perform a RCM analysis. Our customers know the real face of RCM because we take the time to share experience in what it takes to be successful in Reliability Centered Maintenance.

The First Key Step to Successful RCM

1) We start with a plan. While most companies begin by selling their training or services, we know every successful RCM effort starts with a plan because every one of our customers is different. Just look at the following different scenarios;

- Company A needs a quick win to get some buy-in from upper management.

- Company B believes they would like to train their own internal RCM facilitators.

- Company C has support to start a RCM effort and they believe they would like to have our facilitators lead each analysis.

- Company D has had three major incidents on a critical piece of equipment in the last year and they would like to perform a RCM on that asset as soon as possible.

- Company E has tried to make RCM a part of their culture in the past, they now have a new manager who again wants to use RCM to develop their maintenance strategies.

- Company F would like to get started with a RCM program but they only have support from the maintenance side of the business. The operations manager has stated that he will not supply people from his part of the business for the analysis.

- Company G has made contact and their new reliability manager attended a conference and wants them to learn about RCM. They have no idea what reliability centered maintenance is and why he thinks they need it.

While the 7 scenarios listed above might be a bit confusing, for the RCM leaders at GPAllied this is a normal part of the RCM Blitz cycle.

Determine Customer Needs - Work with the customer to determine their needs and continue to work with the customer to develop a plan for success that fits their present work culture. This plan will include full disclosure in regard to the people, time and resources required to ensure a successful effort. A plan that details from day 1 how we will select assets for analysis, how we estimate the time it takes to complete each analysis, individuals, priorities and due dates for implementation and most important, a plan that clearly shows how we plan to measure and prove return on investment.

If you RCM effort doesn't start with a plan, you can plan on it being included in the 70% of RCM efforts that fail!

To learn about RCM Blitz™ and the key steps for RCM success contact Doug Plucknette at plucknetted@alliedreliability.com or call 585-329-7040

Please Bring Back the Apprentice!

While Donald Trump has given the word apprentice some a new meaning over the past several years, this is not the apprentice I am looking for.
I happen to be referring to the skilled trades apprentice programs that have seem to have disappeared over the last ten years. As I work with teams of operators and skilled trades people performing RCM analyses at companies around the world at some point in time as we are discussing the failure modes and effects I might ask the question; how does your company ensure that the skilled trades people working on your assets are actually qualified to work on the equipment?

This question is often met with a look of confusion.

I will then ask, how do we know if a person who calls themselves an electrician is actually qualified to work on a 3 phase, explosion proof electrical circuit? Or, that the next guy who calls himself a mechanic can actually align the motor and gearbox shafts to an alignment specification of +/- .002”?

Having made the question clear, the response I most often hear is “we don’t have a process, we rely on one person teaching the next but if you’re asking about a formal apprentice program, we lost that years ago and it has never come back.”

Interesting, and maybe this is just one of my own personal hang-ups but I have a hard time with someone who calls themselves a Electrician because they helped a friend hook up their cable TV, or the next guy who calls himself a welder because he made two pieces of metal stick together and fixed the loud noise coming from the tail pipe of his K-car.

While apprentice programs seem to be dying all around the United States, the level of talented and certified skilled trades people is shrinking at an alarming rate. More disturbing is the lack of understanding at the executive level regarding the importance of this issue. The reliability of your manufacturing assets is dependent on the ability of your skilled trades people to perform maintenance tasks to a level of precision that exceeds that of a surgeon! (See Examples Below) Yet for some unknown reason we want to believe that all of our tradespeople are created equal because they each have a high school diploma?

Formal Apprentice programs are what build the foundation and understanding regarding the importance of precision maintenance. The reliability and total life cycle of your assets along with the safety of your facility is highly dependent on the ability of your tradespeople and their knowledge of precision maintenance and safe work practices.

The examples below came from internet searches of “Measuring Surgical Precision” and Precision Alignment Standards. Note the that precision of a surgeon performing hip replacement is 4mm and the precision required for rotating shaft alignment is +/- .002” or .0762mm

Clinical Implications

Precision surgical guides with 4-mm occlusogingival height may
provide adequate accuracy for implant placement. Reducing the occlusogingival height of the guide may ease the use of precision-guided
surgery without compromising the accuracy of implant placement. http://bionics.soe.ucsc.edu/publications/JP_22.pdf

Specifying Shaft Alignment Written by Victor Wowk, P.E. Machine Dynamics, Inc. Monday, 01 May 2000 20:02

After shim changes are made, the above test shall be repeated at all feet until less than 0.002 inch rise is measured at each foot. If shim changes cannot adjust the rise, then the base will need to be ground or machined. See Section D, "Bases and Foundations."

http://www.mt-online.com/component/content/article/138-may2000/388-specifying-shaft-alignment-.html?directory=90

Having now been exposed to the truth that your tradespeople need to work to a higher level of precision than a surgeon, can we please bring back the apprentice programs?

The safety and relability of your equipment and your facility depend on this critical training!

Things I learned by 50!

Old is relative.

I can remember thinking my dad was old when he turned 50. While I might look old to my kids I don’t feel old. When I look in the mirror each morning I still see the person I saw yesterday and he doesn’t look any older than he did the day before.

Home is the best place on earth.

I have been lucky enough to travel the world for the last 12 years, I’ve seen several beautiful places, enjoyed the history, beer, wine and cheese of Europe, the stunning peace and tranquility of the beaches in Indonesia, the poverty and despair of Third World and the home town values and hospitality of nearly every state in our most beautiful country. After all this time and all of these miles the trip I look most forward to is the one that takes me home.

Pain is temporary, pride is forever.

While this was the motto of my favorite football team it has also become one that means a lot to me. In my 50 years I have learned that the accomplishments I am most proud of took some work and some pain. Some time away from the people I love the most and the emotional ups and downs that come with walking out on what most people saw as security to prove my experience and what I had to offer the world was not only useful but unique and necessary. If there were a mathematical equation for success, pain would likely be a denominator.

Happiness is a state of mind.

The one thing I have learned that helped me the most in life was that I have the ability to wake each morning and make the decision that I am going to have a good day. I am going to be positive and I am going to look for the best things in every situation I encounter. Learning is always a positive thing, even when we learn things the hard way. Several years ago we watched a close friend die from an invasive brain tumor, in the hours before this death, we talked, listened to john Lennon tunes, laughed and smiled. When T. Statt died he was happy. If he could be happy in the hours before his death, I know I can be happy in life.

Dogs make me laugh.

I don’t know what it is about dogs, some are really smart, some never learn to sit or come when called, but most every dog I meet can make me laugh. They can be smart, stupid, big, small, hairy or semi-bald like Rayba; I’m a sucker when it comes to dogs. Like I said, they make me laugh.

If you want to fall in love again, just go to a wedding.

Leslie and I have been married 28 years, for as long as I can remember we have always been in love. But If I want to feel that overwhelming emotion that comes the day you get married and the day you welcome your children into the world I only need to go to a wedding. Weddings make me cry, they bring back the emotion I remember feeling when I looked into her eyes and Monsignor Shannon started saying the vows.

Nothing on earth is more important and nothing on earth gives me more pride or satisfaction than my extended family.

I have been fortunate in life to have a lot of friends, I have several very close friends from school and childhood, and I have friends from work and friends I have made working with customers all over the world. While I love my friends, I rely on my family. I am the person I am today because of my family. My mom and dad, brothers, sister, in-laws, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins, we all share a bond, being a Plucknette is special, especially in a town called Spencerport, NY. Not only is Spencerport someplace special, it’s where my family is from.

My family makes me complete.

My wife and my children and the life we have made for each other are what make me feel complete. I am both happy and successful, more important I am loved. My family gives me love. On the best and the worst days I have always been proud of my family and our home. When I was 25 I remember wondering how it was that my father could be so smart, 25 years later I know the secret. Being a husband and a father makes you smart, there is no school, no book or course, smart comes from just being there. Picking them up when they fall, drying the tears when they cry, the joy and laughter that comes with learning and love. The worry of big steps like the first day of school, acceptance of friends, the teen years and their first loves. The pain that hits you deep when they turn their back on your love and advice, the heartache and pride of sending them off to college and most important the joy, love and pride of being a witness to the miracle. This is the day the light comes on, the day we first understand that while mom and dad may have made some mistakes along the way but WOW, they are pretty smart people! Loving your children makes you smart. When I wake up and I am home I am so thankful, when I wake up and I am not, I count the days and look forward to walking through the front door.

My favorite day is Sunday, we all have breakfast together and Leslie and I get to enjoy our children being together. Life is good, but love, well love is great!


In 25 years I learned what John Lennon and Paul McCartney told us all years ago. All you need is love, Love is all you need!

Reducing Health, Safety and Environmental Incidents and Accidents through RCM Analysis

Reliability Centered Maintenance is a powerful tool that when applied and implemented correctly can provide numerous benefits including improved equipment reliability, a reduction in unplanned downtime and lower unit cost of product. One of the most impressive benefits of performing a RCM Blitz™ analysis is the identification of failure modes that could result in a health, safety and environmental incident or accident. While some would like to believe that in today’s world where most new designs and capital projects are subjected to numerous design reviews that would include process hazard analysis we still uncover a significant number of health, safety and environmental related failure modes in every RCM Blitz™ analysis.

Even more impressive than the identification of these failure modes is the process where the RCM facilitator and team work to identify at task that will mitigate the failure mode and its potential effects. As our facilitator and team move forward with the implementation phase of our analysis we place a significant amount emphasis on the importance of implementing the complete maintenance strategy by clearly stating that implementing and performing that tasks identified in the RCM analysis is the only way to get a return on investment for the money spent in training, analyzing and implementing the tasks.

Today I would like to make clear to the world something I have been telling only my customers for over 12 years now.

Implementing the actions or tasks from your RCM analysis is not only important, it should be mandatory. Especially when it comes to the tasks that are related to failure modes that impact health, safety or environment because as a team the represents your company we have just recognized or identified a potential failure mode AND recommended a task to address its cause. Electing to ignore these failure modes and tasks immediately places your company in a very difficult legal position.
Consider this, while this failure may have never occurred in the past, what would happen if it occurred tomorrow and you now had documentation that clearly identified you not only recognized it could occur but also identified and a ignored task that would have eliminated the failure or significantly reduced the probability of occurrence? While I may not be a lawyer I would have to question if ignoring the failure mode and task and having evidence that clearly shows this choice would make the difference between responsible and negligent.

So today I will share with the world what I have been telling my customers for years, “implementation is not a choice when it comes to RCM Blitz™, it‘s your responsibility. As a team we worked for several hours to identify the failure modes that are LIKELY and POSSIBLE, for each we considered the probability it would occur and the potential consequences to your business should it occur. We then took our time and used a proven decision process to select the best task/tasks to mitigate each of these failure modes by reducing or eliminating the likelihood of occurrence. Electing to ignore these failure modes and tasks quite frankly is irresponsible!”

The good news I have today is our customers’ get this message and our customers are implementing the tasks that come out of their analyses.
As a RCM practitioner, mentor and facilitator I take personal interest in every RCM Blitz™ analysis we perform and as a result I make it a personal goal to follow up on tracking the progress of each implementation by making monthly phone calls and sending e-mails. I have to say I am impressed with the accomplishments of 2010!

I would be remiss if I did not share some of the secrets of why our customers are so successful at implementing the RCM Blitz™ tasks.

1. The RCM Blitz™ database has a fantastic implementation tracking tool where one can:
• Assign each individual task to a responsible person
• Assign each individual task a due date
• Track the status of each task
• Prioritize each task based on criticality/priority

2. We engage our facilitators and practitioners in the implementation process knowing full well that the capabilities of our customers differ from one to the next. We offer assistance in:
• Writing PM’s and Job Plans
• Creating Operator Rounds Sheets and Check Lists for Start-up, Shut-Down, and Product Changes
• Managing and assigning action for a accelerated implementation

3. We work with our customers up-front to identify the best candidates for analysis so they will show a return on investment when they complete the implementation plan and perform the new maintenance strategy. With the up-front plan in place they can now clearly show the impact of each analysis.

In closing nothing impressed me more through the years than seeing our long term customers in action when it comes to addressing some of the difficult actions that come to the surface when a clear HSE related failure mode exists. In the past two years I have witnessed on two occasions where customers were immediately notified of a serious condition. On both occasions the equipment was immediately locked out and the failure modes was eliminated within 12 hours. Each of these customers commented that had they not performed the RCM Blitz™ they might have never recognized the potential serious hazard.

While Reliability Centered Maintenance can be a powerful tool, it will only deliver results when implemented.

Companies who are successful at RCM understand the importance of implementation, when it comes to success; the Leaders use RCM Blitz™.

The Wonderful World of Webinars

One sure sign that you're getting old is when you look at a change in technology and say "I don't get it!"

This is how I am with Webinars.

I have been thinking about doing some RCM Blitz Webinars. In the past I have both participated in and instructed Webinars and I have to be honest and say in both cases I thought it was a truly awful way to present and learn materials.

In each case there were glitches in getting everyone up and running so the material could be presented, viewed, and heard. Questions were clumsy; we tried asking questions by voice and by typing in questions and comments. It just didn't seem natural. And being honest it did not fit my style of learning or instructing. In my mind if you wanted to teach someone how to fall asleep this might be a world-class methodology!

Over the past decade I have spent a fair amount of time trying to ensure that all of my courses cover the different styles of learning; reading, listening, doing and testing. In my mind learning is a process that is alive, exciting and interactive. It is a process that can take place in a classroom or in the field but it is most effective when the student and instructor work face to face instead of screen to screen.

So today for a moment I sit back and wonder if time might be passing by. Is the Webinar the way we will learn in the future?

Will we someday all attend web-based conferences and type in messages about what we learned in a webinar and how it helped us to make significant changes to our company and how we run our business? I was thinking while watching a bit of reality TV last night that I could even record a bunch of Webinars on all kinds of stuff and schedule them until the year 2060. I'll be 100 on September 16th of that year but because I'm going to record them this year I'll still sound young. I also wondered if maybe CBS had already done this to Andy Rooney years ago and never told us that we have just been watching a Webinar of Andy the last five years or so.

What I really want to know is what makes the Webinar relevant?

Why do people like Webinars?

How can I make a Webinar fun? (I am told my courses are fun and I enjoy teaching them. I want the feel the same way about Webinars!)

Last but not least, would you rather attend a Webinar or a live, in person training course?

I'm looking for some answers people and it's your time to be heard.

RCM Blitz Training Charleston, SC - September 14-16, 2009

Name: RCM Blitz
Session dates: 9/14/2010 - 9/16/2010
Duration: 3 Days
Session Fee: $1495
Location: Charleston, SC
Presenters: DougPlucknette
Description: This course teaches the fundamentals of Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM). This course focuses on preserving equipment functions by identifying appropriate Preventive Maintenance (PM) tasks, Predictive Maintenance (PdM) tasks, failure finding tasks and other actions that protect against failure or mitigate the consequences of failure. Examples and exercises give participants “hands on” experience to help them begin to master RCM concepts.

Who Should Attend: Maintenance Managers and Supervisors, Reliability and Maintenance Engineers, Maintenance Technicians, Production Managers, Supervisors, and Operators, Plant Engineers, and others involved in operating and maintaining of assets.
What You Will Learn: • The importance and history of RCM

• RCM terminology and fundamental RCM philosophies

• Identifying and allocating resources for a RCM program

• Preparing for an RCM analysis

• Techniques for prioritizing systems for analysis

• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) for RCM

• How to evaluating failure consequences

• How to select PM, PdM and failure finding tasks and intervals

• What other function protective actions are available

• When Run-to-Failure (RTF) is appropriate

• Packaging and implementing RCM analysis results

• When to use a subject matter expert team

• Common barriers to implementation and how to get buy-in from all levels

Learn Why RCM Blitz is Different

I work someplace different every week.

A different town, city, state, or country.

The people I work with usually speak a little differently than I do. They have a different accent and may even speak a different language.

The things we perform RCM Blitz™ on are different for nearly every company I work with. I have performed Reliability Centered Maintenance analysis on bottle fillers, dishwasher conveyors, chemical tanks, oil platform equipment, air compressors and barge unloaders. I can honestly say that while each one of these systems had several components or parts in common, each system and each result was different.

We have performed the exact same RCM analysis techniques for identical pieces of equipment at locations that were only 1500 miles apart and we discovered several different failure modes and several different mitigating tasks. While the equipment was identical, the locations as well as design and installation practices were very different and as a result the reliability of these two assets was very different.

With all of the differences I have listed, I still completely understand when a customer calls or makes the statement in the first day of training that "I'm not sure this will work for us....we are different."

I like to reply that I believe you’re different, so am I and so is the process you about to learn about. It works on everything and it depends on the knowledge, experience, and determination of your people and their desire to improve.

RCM Blitz™ is Different!

RCM Blitz - The Art of Redesign

Redesign as a part of Reliability Centered Maintenance is often a field that gets a lot of attention. Some people would have you believe that the only way Reliability Centered Maintenance improves equipment reliability is through the identification and elimination of poorly designed equipment.

This could not be further than the truth!

When we look at the word Redesign in RCM terms it means any change in equipment, process or procedures so in reality most redesigns that come out of a RCM Blitz analysis are procedural. They address how we operate, set up and maintain our assets so when a RCM analysis is complete and the customer sees six pages of redesigns with 6 items listed on each page I tell them to relax and read the document as nearly 85% of all redesigns are procedural and cost very little to implement.

As an example I recently performed a RCM analysis on a box erector and the finished analysis identified 58 redesign tasks. Of those 58 tasks, fifty-two required a redesign or creation of a procedure of how to properly set the box erector up, how to smoothly transition from one size case to the next and how to maintain each set up over a period of time. Of the remaining 6 redesigns, five addressed a physical redesign to manufacture set-up blanks for each case size and the last was the addition of an additional photo eye to prevent a catastrophic crash of the erector shuttle.

The total cost to implement the 58 redesigns was less than $5,000.00 and tool less than two weeks time to complete. The newly implemented equipment maintenance plan improved the equipment OEE from 62% to 93% proving once again RCM Blitz delivers!

Who Said Youth is Wasted on the Young?

It was George Bernard Shaw and I think he was trying to express that young people have everything going for them physically; their minds should sharp and clear but because of their youth and inexperience they lack the patience and experience to make sound decisions. After a week of teaching the youth of Schlumberger at the Training Center in Sugar Land, Texas I have a different view than Mr. Shaw.

I think Old George would think differently if he had spent a week instructing young engineers from around the world on the process and benefits of Reliability Centered Maintenance. If I have said it once in the last 15 years I have said it one hundred times, Reliability Centered Maintenance at first glance doesn't seem like a difficult process but try once to facilitate an analysis and you will soon be lost in the subtle complexities of how to word a proper failure mode and the importance of good failure effect statements.

Looking at ten faces all under the age of 30 on a Monday morning I was staring into the bright young face of inexperience and impatience and wondering if they had the pluck required to conquer such a course.

Over the next several days I tested their patience and pushed the limits of what someone with 30 years experience would expect from someone with two and by Friday noon I was pleased to report that the youth of today are not what old George Bernard Shaw believed them to be. If anything is wasted today it's the time we don't spend as experienced professionals asking those with less what they think or believe caused a failure.

If youth is wasted on the young, could it be true that experience is wasted on the old? Experience after all can sometimes make us believe that we have tried everything we need to in order to improve. The youth my friends are willing to try those same things over again with more focus and precision.

If you have forgotten to include youth in your RCM effort, there is no time better than today!

Were we somehow smarter in 1984? Gulf Oil Spill Continued

With the number of comments and responses to the two recent articles I posted on this event I could not help going back to books on Reliability Basics. One of my favorite books for reference is "Reliability Toolkit: Commercial Practices Edition" released by the Reliability Analysis Center out of Rome, NY. While the book was released in 1988 the section I reference has been available to the public since 1984.

It seems that nearly every day I read an article that refers to the failure of the BOP (Blowout Preventer) Valve, with all that has been written about the BOP Valve one would have to believe that this was a critical item in regard to this process. Keeping this in mind I pulled out my favorite old textbook and took a look at what the research funded our tax dollars recommended in regard to Critical Item Reliability. While I admit to being a bit of a geek, I found it quite interesting that we had a plan of recommendations in place to deal with critical items that dates back twenty-six years.

According to the Reliability Toolkit, a critical item is a component whose failure can significantly affect safety, operating success or repair costs. (I would guess that in today’s world we could add environmental impact to that statement) It goes on to say that "Critical items include high valued components, new technologies, limited life items, single source or custom components and single failure points where failure cause a total loss of operating capabilities.

Wow! I don't claim to have a vast knowledge of oil platform components but I would say that the above paragraph clearly describes the component we have been reading about the last four weeks.

Going back to the book, the next section lists criteria for "What Causes Critical Items"

1. Use of necessary advanced technology or processes
2. Marginal component capability in adverse conditions
3. Low part or product reliability
4. Failures that cause other components to fail
5. High cost custom designed parts
6. Limited or single source vendors for critical applications
7. Severe Safety and Environmental Impact

I don't know about you but I'm beginning to see some red flags here so I elect to read on to learn about "Critical Item Control Checklist". In this section we learn about major concerns and recommended actions. I would have to say that if I had a critical item in my design, I would want to take a close look at this check list.

The first major concern asks the question; "Has a failure mode analysis been considered for critical items?" The recommend action is to "Develop failure mode identification procedures so that control of the item can be invoked". That sounds a lot like Reliability Centered Maintenance to me!

Concern - Have compensating features been considered for the design?

Action - Consider features like safety margins, overstress testing or fault tolerance

Concern - Have reliability improvements been considered?

Action - Evaluate special stress tests, checkouts, vendor quality procedures, alternate components and operating duty cycles.

Concern - Does the operating environment strain or exceed design limits?

Action - Include fault tolerant designs, safety margins and external changes

Concern - Does failure of the item jeopardize safety or does a single point of failure disrupt mission performance?

Action - A list of critical items and personnel responsible for controlling and reviewing procedures must be established!

Let's just say that it has been an interesting afternoon of reading and affirmation; what I learned about reliability at RIT several years ago still applies nearly everything I do today. When it comes to reliability the tools and techniques made available by some very bright people are right at our finger tips. The experience and knowledge of the people who install, operate and maintain this equipment so often ignored hold the answers making sure events like these never happen to begin with.

I find it hard to believe that we were smart enough instruct people how to identify and address critical items in 1984 and in the year 2010 we quite simply were not smart enough to read and act.

Update on the Gulf Oil Spill

A few weeks back I posted my views regarding the events that took place on the off shore oil well that resulted in millions of gallons of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and more important the deaths of 11 workers. At the time of the blog I also guessed that this event while preventable would result in a whole lot of finger pointing, the demand for a root cause analysis and a focus on one or two probable causes. What I didn't recognize was how the most recent effects on wildlife and environmental damages would draw our attention away from making sure an incident like this never happens again. Instead we are now focused on who is to blame in regard to keeping the oil from reaching the beaches as well as marshes and wildlife that depends on a clean environment.

The most incredible thing in regard to this entire disaster is the amount of money companies and governments have to spend when they are reacting to catastrophic events in comparison to what they are willing to spend up front on a formal Reliability Centered Maintenance analysis that would have ensured that the failure NEVER happened to begin with or at a minimum reduced the probability of failure to close to zero.

Instead we have a mess, we have 11 dead workers, an uncontrolled oil spill 5,000 feet below the surface, hundreds of seafood workers have lost their source of income and the finger pointing goes on. As the pressure increases we make futile attempts to control the oil, stop the leak and protect our coastline and I still have to wonder could a thorough RCM analysis have prevented all of this? Did the 11 people who died on that platform know about the failure modes that cost them their lives?

My experience in facilitating Reliability Centered Maintenance answers yes to both questions. Reliability Centered Maintenance was designed to ensure the inherent designed reliability of an asset by developing a complete maintenance strategy based on known and probable failure modes identified by a cross-functional team of people who engineer, design, maintain and operate the equipment. I have yet to facilitate a RCM analysis with this type of team that didn't know the failure modes of their equipment as well as the risk and consequences of each. In identifying each failure mode and the potential consequences we would also be well aware of the effects each would have on our Health, Safety, Environment and operational capability of the equipment. Reliability and Safety depend on a proactive culture that demands on a thorough review of our design, and the failure modes associated with each component in that design. When we are not proactive, when we elect to not perform a thorough RCM analysis we are left with no choice but to look back and guess, hoping to solve what the LA Times called "a confluence of unfortunate events."

Implementing an effective condition monitoring program “optimizing reliability”

By Doug Plucknette, RCM Discipline Leader, Allied Reliability, Inc
GPAllied, LLC | www.gpallied.com
Walter Nijsen, Asst. Reliability Leader for Cargill Grain and Oilseeds Europe, spoke with Doug Plucknette, RCM Discipline Leader at Allied Reliability and author of RCM Blitz™ about what he has found is required of a company to ensure their asset reliability and integrity program is optimized. Walter has played an integral role, along with his business unit team members in setting up, performing, and implementing Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) Equipment Maintenance Plans (EMPs) which resulted from several Reliability Centered Maintenance - RCM Blitz™ analyses.

“Walter stated Cargill Europe uses CBM to understand the "different failure modes of their critical assets and how they fail". This enables them to eliminate the root cause and prevent equipment from failing again”
-Walter Nijsen
When did the journey begin?
Cargill Oilseeds Europe started using CBM some 10 years ago, starting with mainly vibration monitoring for rotating equipment as most companies find themselves doing. After some experience, it was very clear that vibration did not cover all failure modes so we extended the CBM program using several technologies. Most companies do not truly understand the value of a true condition monitoring program because they use only a few of the tools and most of the time they are not focused on predicting or preventing a failure mode (Failure mode: how a part fails).

Benefits from Cargill's Condition Monitoring Program
To mention all the benefits Cargill Europe found would take more space than we have here; however, the primary reason we are doing CBM is to anticipate the condition of our assets to respond pro-actively and to increase the resistance to failure and avoid failures", according to Walter. Walter stated that CBM helps their plants plan and schedule maintenance activities as well as identify and eliminate the causes for these failures, which will increase the efficiency and effectiveness resulting in increased reliability and lower cost. Cargill plans and schedules work based on defect severity (Defect = a point of at which failure is identified on the PF Curve using PdM or PM methodologies) and asset criticality ranking.

Secondly, Walter stated Cargill uses CBM to understand the different failure modes of their critical assets and how they fail. This enables them to eliminate the root cause and prevent it from failing again.

Cargill found a majority of their failures were self-inflicted - they were happening during maintenance, installation, engineering, start-up, operation, etc. They recognized the lack of effective use of CBM technologies, lack of effective procedures and lack of precision maintenance installation standards like: alignment, balancing, bearing mounting etc. was the root cause of these self-inflicted failures.

Finding and replacing a damaged bearing is one thing, but also understanding this failure mode is caused by lack of lubrication is another benefit of CBM. It reinforces the concept of knowing a shaft properly aligned before start-up, can save money and capacity. Understanding and eliminating infant mortality is the biggest benefit of a CBM program. All direct failures resulting from infant mortality are found and eliminated before collateral damage occurs by avoiding the failure in a proactive mode. The work is planned, scheduled, and executed using a repeatable work procedure which has the standards, specifications, etc. defined.

CBM technologies Cargill Uses
Cargill uses a number of Condition Monitoring Technologies. They use CBM in the same manner operators use condition inspections to assess product quality – in order to define the condition of their assets. The different types of CBM they use are:
• Quantitative visual inspections by both operators and maintenance personnel
• Vibration monitoring on rotating assets
• Ultrasound for slow speed bearings, compressed air leakage, electrical arcing in cabinets, and steam traps
• Infrared on heat exchangers, mechanical rotating equipment, electrical devices, and hydraulic reservoirs
• Oil and lubrication analyses including particle count and wear part finding
• Motor current analysis online and offline
• NDT for wall thickness of pipes and tanks, and vacuum leakage

How Cargill Identifies the CBM technology and the frequency it should be applied
In the beginning, Cargill used only vibration analysis on rotating equipment. In order to determine which CBM technology to apply to prevent or predict failure modes, Cargill uses two systematic approaches. The first is RCM Blitz™ (Cargill's preferred method of RCM), which is used on critical processes and assets. RCM Blitz™ is a similar process to traditional Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) using the seven questions of RCM, however, the results are identified in a shorter time and applied without delay. Cargill focuses on the systems that will give you the best Return on Investment (ROI). Simply put, to Cargill, RCM Blitz™ is a slam dunk when it comes to return on investment for critical assets.

If you ever wonder how and where to apply RCM Blitz™, you begin by first identifying the top 10% of your most critical assets. Once this list has been identified, you should now begin to measure Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) on these assets and then begin performing RCM analysis on those critical assets that have equipment-based operational, speed and quality losses. If you have selected a critical asset, your implemented RCM maintenance strategy will show measurable improvements in OEE with added improvements in Health, Safety and Environmental performance as well. Cargill demonstrates this in all of their best performing plants globally.

"As a general rule, the success of your first implemented RCM analysis will build the business case to complete RCM analysis on the remainder of your critical assets"

Second, Cargill uses failure mode mapping to determine failure modes for the rest of their assets. Based on the failure modes, software (Asset Health Matrix) they use, maps the failure mode to the technology. The software determines which CBM technology is most effective to apply. See Figure 1.1 for the output of the Asset Health Matrix.



Figure 1.1 – Asset Health Matrix

Walter's Recommendation for the Three CBM Technologies to Invest in First
Walter stated, based on what he has experienced in his business, he would invest in oil and lubricant analysis, vibration monitoring and infrared. This recommendation will vary depending on the business and the type of critical equipment one may have. With these three technologies, you may be able cover most of the common failure modes. The technologies are cheap and widely available.



Infrared Image of Misaligned Shaft

In regard to the technologies, there seems to be a learning curve associated with each in regard to becoming proficient at detecting potential failures and identifying the failure mode that caused the failure, what did Cargill do to accelerate this learning curve?
Exact understanding of the technologies and getting the best benefits out of these is a challenge and takes some time. Within Cargill, they have done several things.

First, Cargill trained all their reliability leaders and maintenance managers in the process of moving from Preventive Maintenance Centric to Condition Monitoring Centric maintenance practices. This change requires that you must change leaders thinking from being reactive to a pro-active state. Changing the way leaders think is key; they must learn that failures are considered unacceptable for any critical asset. So education is foundational.

Second, Cargill recommends that all maintenance and reliability leaders obtain knowledge in all CBM technologies used at their facility to a minimum of Level 1.

Third, they work closely together with companies who have CBM measurement as their core business. They allow their plants only to work with select suppliers and build up a relationship of trust to become strategic partners with each other.

Fourth, Cargill brings in key leaders from all plants in a region two times a year to meet with the CBM supplier to share experiences and look for improvements to avoid re-inventing the wheel all over again and to accelerate their learning.

Bringing Operations Leadership up to speed in terms of CBM
Changing from reactive to pro-active maintenance is a complete culture change and is difficult for the whole organization. Implementing CBM and showing the Return on Investment (ROI) is not enough. If you do not educate and have relentless leadership towards pro-active maintenance, you will fail. Cargill developed trainings for various parts of the organization, depending on the level or function in the organization. Today, they still educate and show the ROI on CBM; however, they have reached the maturity level where CBM has become a part of their culture. Instead of convincing, they are now teaching how to accelerate the CBM implementations.

Process Verification Techniques such as operating pressures, temperatures or flows with Distributive Control Systems Trend Alarms to Determine Potential Failures
Cargill uses these processes to identify the first point of a failure (P on the PF Curve). With Cargill, it depends on the maturity of the plant. They use PI (a software tool to monitor process parameters) to determine when heat exchangers performance reduces or filters get blocked. In the more mature organizations, they use the amperage, flow and pressure to determine pump conditions. If you want to have 80% of your critical maintenance work indentified by CBM, process verification techniques are a must. With the predictive technologies only, you are able to cover about 40-50% and the disadvantage of these technologies today is you only see a snapshot. Several measurements need to be made on a certain frequency to see trend and identifying failures in an earlier stage of the PF curve. Using process verification techniques gives you information 24/7 which enables you to anticipate potential failures earlier and also to evaluate more in-depth what the conditions are and what the parameters are telling you.

Walter, Do you have an example where CBM detected a potential failure, and you were able to avoid a costly shutdown?
"We have several examples. Most of those examples are on the "hidden" equipment. The cooling tower main supply pump is one. This pump is mostly oversized, well-designed and installed and running for years without any problems. Typically, not many problems occur; therefore, it tends to be "forgotten". In one of our plants, we discovered during our CBM vibration monitoring rounds that the bearings were not sufficiently lubricated and would have reached a point of failure within days. We did not have a redundant unit installed; however, we did have a spare available. We then scheduled a short shutdown during a product change (optimizing downtime). After an investigation, the bearings were found to have completely worn out. Had this not been detected before failure, the plant would have had "forced downtime" for several hours with significant tonnage production loss."

Cargill's learning about CBM techniques
Cargill has found that there are several good places to understand and learn about CBM such as industry conferences like Euro-maintenance, ICOMS Asset Management Conference-Australia, SMRP, BEMAS and The International Maintenance Conference. At these conferences, solution providing thought leaders from CBM businesses are presenting themselves.

Measuring Success of a CBM Program
To be successful and to change a culture from reactive to pro-active can only be done if you show the value, benefits and success coming from your CBM program. Cargill has several measurements in place. These measurements are a mix of lagging (result) and leading indicators. Examples of some lagging indicators include;

•Maintenance cost per installed replacement asset value
•Plant reliability measured as Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
Their main focus is on the leading indicators. These indicators provide them with informative details about the condition of the plant. Examples include:

•Asset Health. This is the % of critical assets which have "No Identifiable Defect". We call an asset healthy if we cannot detect point P (P-F curve) for all critical failure modes with all of PdM technologies applicable.
•Another measurement is the effectiveness of the maintenance organization measured by actual maintenance hours spent on pro-active activities. Our goal is to spend 80% of the time on pro-active work (PM and PdM). This is work identified with CBM and the follow-up work.
In total, Cargill uses about 10 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of their program.



Figure 1.2 – Example of a Balanced Scorecard at one of Cargill's Sites

Using CBM technologies to verify quality following installation; i.e. alignment, balance, lube testing of new oil
In most of Cargill's commission check lists, they have specified the start-up condition of new and repaired equipment. This includes oil cleanliness, vibration levels, but also balancing and alignment standards. Pumps should be mounted stress-free so before installing the pump, we check for the correct pipe support, etc. Vibration analysis, infrared or other technologies are used to validate that new equipment or components have no identifiable defect at the start of their life.

In conclusion, Cargill has developed a progressive maintenance and reliability program. They operate by procedures, standards, specifications and rely on outside experts to help them be the best in their industry. Cargill's reliability initiatives, successes and continuous improvement efforts help provide their customers a quality product on demand in highly competitive marketplaces around the globe. Cargill has over 1300 plants in the world with over 160,000 employees and are one of the largest, privately-held companies in the world.

About the Author
Doug Plucknette is the founder of RCM Blitz™ and Author of the book Reliability Centered Maintenance using RCM Blitz™. Doug Plucknette has provided Reliability Training and services to numerous companies around the world, large and small, including such Fortune 500 companies as Cargill, Whirlpool, Honda, Coors Brewing, Energizer, Corning, Invista, and Newmont Mining. Doug has made key contributions to standard reliability measures for manufacturing, and reliability training programs for engineers, managers, technicians, and skilled trades. He has trained numerous client RCM Facilitators and performed RCM analyses in hundreds of pieces of manufacturing equipment.

About GPAllied
GPAllied, LLC is a joint venture with General Physics Corporation, a global performance improvement solutions provider of sales and technical training, e-Learning solutions, management consulting and engineering services, and Allied Reliability, Inc., a global engineering firm specializing in predictive maintenance and reliability engineering.

GPAllied provides the most diverse reliability and operations consulting and services globally available today. With offices in the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, GPAllied has extensive experience in the specialty fields of Lean, Reliability Engineering, Six Sigma, Condition Monitoring, Leadership and Change Management, Maintenance Planning and Scheduling, Workforce Development and Maintenance Craft Skills training. GPAllied serves clients in asset-intensive industries, like petrochemical, mining, energy, manufacturing, food and beverage, and life sciences to name a few. GPAllied brings together unique capabilities and synergistic strengths of two thought leaders and allows for global implementation never before realized by the industry. The result is the joining of People, Processes and Technologies in one total package never before realized – now available to the global marketplace. Additional information may be found at http://gpallied.com.

If you have questions or would like more information about GPAllied, LLC, RCM Blitz™, please contact GPAllied Managing Director, Dirk DeNutte, at ddenutte@gpallied.com or via phone: +32.496.572.104.

RCM Blitz -What Can We Do Before Things Go Wrong?

Seems like every time a company is faced with the tragic circumstances we have witnessed over the last few weeks with the coal mine explosion in West Virginia that killed 25 workers, and more recently the oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisianan, that killed 11 workers and has resulted in thousands of gallons of oil leaking into these waters on a daily basis, our news agencies and people around the world are demanding investigations as to what went wrong with each incident. Human nature demands we investigate what went wrong and who was responsible. There must be a cause, we must find someone to blame and that person should be held accountable. It would seem at times like these that finding those responsible get more attention than making sure events like these never happen again.

In truth the pain for the families who lost loved ones and the companies who will be held responsible has just begun. Moving forward experts in each field will be hired to voice their opinions regarding the likely causes. The news coverage will likely focus on the one or two most likely potential causes and several months down the road a figure head for both companies will proclaim that their company has now addressed these issues removing the chance that this will never occur again!

And, as a seasoned RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) practitioner I will close my eyes, say a prayer, and hope that one or two things they focused on are the only things that could have caused these American workers their lives. I say a prayer because I know as other RCM and RCA (Root Cause Analysis) practitioners know that events like these seldom have a single cause. In reality tragedies like these are typically a series or chain of events that lead to catastrophic failure and the only way to reduce the likelihood of these failures to an acceptable level is to identify and mitigate the all the failure modes that could cause them.

The real shame comes in the understanding that what has happened, didn't have to happen. While all failures might not be predictable they are all preventable. Preventing failures takes leadership, structure, discipline, resources, expertise and patience. Being honest, these are characteristics seldom seen or displayed in companies as we face a very tough economy and this being said we all have to make tough decisions so the question always turns to; What would it have cost to put a team of experts together and identify every failure mode that COULD lead to catastrophic failure? And; had we put this team of experts together several years ago, would we now be in the position we find ourselves in today?

Reliability Centered Maintenance is a very structured process that asks a series of questions to discover and mitigate the failure modes that result in functional failure of your assets. In performing this process over the past 15 years I am continuously amazed at the unforeseen failure modes we uncover as a team and while this process is not perfect the companies who elect to perform and implement RCM always see an improvement in equipment reliability as well as a reduction in health, safety and environmental incidents and accidents.

To perform a thorough RCM analysis on your equipment you need to hire a seasoned RCM practitioner who believe it or not has little or no experience in the equipment you are about to analyze (Experience brings bias and leads to missed failure modes), a team of process experts, engineers (Mechanical, Electrical, Process, Safety/Environmental) equipment operators and a cross section of trades people (Mechanical, Electrical, Instrument). This RCM team should be composed of experts who are respected by their peers who are honest and open to change. In performing analyses of asses where failure could result in catastrophic events this team will need the patience required to discuss the causes and effects of all failures that could lead to catastrophic events and in discussing these failures we can then address tasks intended to mitigate each failure mode. The most important thing to remember as you assemble your RCM team is understand that the word "Expert" requires that this person actually has hands on experience working with your equipment and the environment in which it operates.

So, while we all wait to find out what happened and why these events occurred, I really hope that we all take a step back and think what could happen at our workplace. When it comes to our people and our assets we have two choices, the first is to be proactive and identify a team to identify and mitigate failure modes, the second is to cross our fingers and let an outside team of "experts" identify a couple of things we did wrong and hope they were the only causes.

It's All About Completing the Cycle

As part of the RCM Blitz Boot Camp this week in Charleston, South Carolina we spend part of the first morning discussing the goals of a good Reliability Centered Maintenance Analysis. I always find it interesting that when you ask someone about the goals of their RCM program they discuss the assets they want to perform an analysis on, how they want their people to learn the value of a failure modes based maintenance strategy, and how they want RCM to become part of their business culture. The best way to fulfill all of these goals is to understand and complete the full RCM cycle. For those who have never been exposed the complete RCM cycle it starts with performing reliability measures on critical assets, we then select an asset for analysis, prepare for the analysis, complete the analysis, implement the tasks, perform the tasks and confirm the return on investment by continuing to perform the reliability measures we began with.

The best way to make Reliability Centered Maintenance a part of your business culture is to fully complete the analysis cycle and prove the success of each analysis! Should you fail to recognize and complete any part of this cycle your effort is likely to fail.

The most successful RCM efforts focus on completing each step in the RCM cycle and I am proud to say that by informing our customers that RCM Blitz means more than just a RCM analysis we have helped to build some of the most successful efforts in the world!

To learn more about RCM Blitz click the links in this blog

What Should You Expect From an Experienced RCM Facilitator?

Before I put in my two cents, I would like to know what you all think in regard to this subject or if you have a similar story, please feel free to share your experience.

I recently had two separate customers share with me stories about hiring people/consultants who claimed to be "RCM Experts", in both cases their "expert" turned out to have very little experience actually facilitating a RCM analysis. One had attended a RCM public offering, recorded their analysis in MS Excel, and worked with their RCM team 1 day a week for 14 weeks and in the team delivered a PM focused maintenance strategy because their facilitator told them that they were "not ready for PdM and it would cost too much for them to get started".

There were lots of red flags within the 14 weeks that they worked on this project but the pressing questions were not asked until after the team presented their new maintenance strategy. Following this disappointment they did a little homework and found out their experienced facilitator could not provide a single reference in regard to his RCM experience other than his 3 day course certificate.

Company number two was slightly more aggressive in making the discovery that their newly hired RCM expert had little to no experience facilitating the RCM process. It turns out that company number 2 has a few certified CMRP's and one happened to attend the RCM team training that was being put on by their newly hired consultant. After a few pressing questions it turned out that Mr. RCM Expert was a new hire and had yet to attend formal RCM training and had never even sat in on a single RCM analysis!

After hearing two stories within 1 month I figured that others must have had similar experiences. I don't know about you, but any time we hired a consultant I expect and expert in that subject to show up. Getting anything less is fraudulent.

Using RCM Blitz and AHM to Develop a Complete Maintenance Plan

From the first day that RCM Blitz™ became tool that I offered both training and facilitation in Reliability Centered Maintenance services I have told my customers that RCM should only be applied to assets where we will be able to show a return on investment in improved reliability as well as reduction in health, safety and environment incidents and accidents.

More than 10 years later I now can stand behind a tool that will quickly help your company build a viable maintenance plan for the remaining balance of your plant assets. The Asset Health Matrix developed by Allied Reliability Inc. and available through GPAllied is without a doubt a straight forward and comprehensive solution for building sound maintenance strategy for your non-critical assets.

In looking at 100% of the assets you maintain at your site of facility Reliability Centered Maintenance or RCM Blitz™ will provide a complete maintenance strategy for the top 5 to 20 percent of your assets based on actual failure modes resulting from your operating context and environment. For the remaining assets or balance of plant, the 10% that have the lowest criticality will receive a Run to Failure strategy 70 to 85 percent of non-critical assets will receive a maintenance plan developed by assessing common failure modes within the Asset Health Matrix.

The important thing to understand in regard to the Asset Health Matrix is this is NOT just a simple list of predetermined failure modes. This is a tool that takes into account your specific business and the consequences of each failure as it applies to your world building a unique and cost effective equipment maintenance plan.

To learn more about RCM Blitz™ and the Asset Health Matrix please click on the links, e-mail me at plucknetted@alliedreliability.com or call me at 585-329-7040.

Are We Ready for RCM Blitz™?

I got an e-mail from a new potential customer yesterday, it was one of those that starts out with, "We really like what you do, we like the RCM Blitz™ process, we think it could help us to significantly improve how we perform maintenance on our assets, however our management and CMMS system are not ready to handle the structure and discipline that comes with completing a RCM analysis. We are going to work on implementing a new CMMS system this year and I think next year we will be closer to being ready for RCM Blitz."

As you close out a e-mail this reads like this as a consultant you are left to wonder in regard to how a company comes to decide it they are ready to perform and implement a RCM analysis. Is my company ready for RCM Blitz™?

I wish I had an easy answer. A simple questioner that one could fill out in a excel spread sheet, circle some numbers and come up with a magic score that says "Congratulations! You scored a perfect 1600 and you are now ready for your first RCM Blitz™ analysis!"

The fact is I have something easier than a questioner and spreadsheet. Having been in the RCM consulting business for over 10 years I have come to determine a company is ready when a group or single individual is ready to take on the responsibility of doing the following items;

1) Build a business case for performing your first RCM analysis by selecting a critical asset that is suffering from human or equipment based losses.

2) Gather the drawings and upfront information necessary to begin your analysis.

3) Select a small team of experts to work with an experienced RCM facilitator to complete the analysis.

4) Develop and track the implementation of the tasks developed in your RCM analysis.

5) Continue to track the reliability measures of this asset and report on the success that resulted from implementing and performing your RCM tasks.

The five steps listed above should take no more than three months to complete and be able to begin showing the improvement that will result from completing and implementing a RCM Blitz™ analysis. And, you should all take note that there is not a single step that asks, if your corporate managers are ready for RCM or what CMMS system you are using, or if there is an interface to automatically transfer the tasks from the RCM database to your CMMS system.

Plain and simple, a company is ready for RCM Blitz™ the day they first recognize that that having unreliable equipment and costly maintenance is affecting the profits of your business.

It's All About The Failure Modes

While there are many places that new RCM facilitators fall down when it comes to facilitating a thorough and useful RCM analysis, most errors in the process start at the failure mode level. Writing good failure modes requires an expert level of understanding of hundreds of different of components. What is the component intended to do (Function) and what are the ways that this component can fail (Failure Modes).

Through the years I have tried a couple of different ways to teach how to write good failure modes. In performing hundreds of RCM Blitz™ analyses with different facilitators, and practitioners for companies around the world we have come to understand that good failure modes should be written in three parts.

Part - Problem - Specific Cause of Failure

As an example: Cooling water pump bearing (Part) seizes (Problem) due to lack of lubrication (Specific Cause of Failure)

The part is the location or source of where the failure mode begins. Looking at the cooling water pump listed above, a rookie facilitator might be tempted to say the cooling water pump failed and while this is true, where did the failure begin? It began when the bearing was not lubricated.

The problem portion of the three part failure mode is the undesired condition that results from specific cause of failure. If we neglect to lubricate the cooling pump bearing it will vibrate, heat up and eventually seize. While the bearing has been failing for some time when it seizes we now have a problem.

The third part of a good failure mode is the specific cause of failure. As we write each failure mode we should recognize that the purpose of RCM is to develop a task that will clearly mitigate the cause. If we don't get the specific cause written at the correct level your team will never select develop a good mitigating task. Again with the end in mind if we miss the specific cause the outcome of your analysis will surely miss the failure mode.

So what exactly is a specific cause of failure? This is where experience in Root Cause Analysis or Cause Mapping becomes extremely valuable. Failure Modes are all about understanding the relationship between cause and effect. The trick is to learn to discuss each failure mode at a level where a sound maintenance task can mitigate or eliminate the failure mode. To understand this lets go back to the cooling water pump.

Cooling Tower Pump Fails - Some would consider this a failure mode, I would not it only contains two pieces of a three part failure mode, the pump and at a high level, the problem. How would one mitigate this failure? Is there a maintenance task to detect, reduce or eliminate this failure mode? Would this task be applicable and effective in detecting, eliminating or mitigating this failure mode? Being honest, this failure mode is nearly useless. The only way to deal with this failure mode is to replace the pump.

Cooling Tower Pump Bearing Fails - Again, just two parts here, there is not enough information here to make a sound task decision. Some would say that we could perform vibration analysis and detect the bearing failure. While in most cases this might be true, without knowing the specific cause we cannot be sure. In many cases there are specific causes of failure where vibration analysis is clearly not the best task for mitigating the failure mode. As an example, I don't want to use vibration analysis to tell me that we have not lubricated a bearing.

Cooling tower pump bearing seizes due to improper lubrication - While we have three parts here, how do I deal with this specific cause of failure? What does improper lubrication mean? There could be several specific causes buried within this one failure mode. For instance improper lubrication could mean, too much lubrication, not enough lubrication, the incorrect type of lubrication, lubrication at the incorrect interval. It is extremely important to remember we need to have the specific cause written at a level where we know the maintenance task will be both applicable and effective in eliminating the failure mode. Each of the separate causes listed in regard to lubrication would result in a different mitigating task. Combine the causes and we now risk missing a failure mode and a task.

Remember, the failure modes we identify are the key to developing our complete maintenance strategy and most important failure modes to identify the failures that result from the context and environment in which we operate our equipment.

More information on writing good failure modes can be found in my book Reliability Centered Maintenance using RCM Blitz™

Let's Just Call it RCE - Reliability Centered Everything

I get mad at Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap from time to time. Fifteen years ago their work titled Reliability Centered Maintenance became the focus of my life when I first discovered the impact that RCM could have on manufacturing reliability. Since that time, I have authored somewhere around twenty articles on the subject, been a featured speaker at nearly three conferences a year and last year I even completed a book on the subject, describing what I see as the most effective way to complete a RCM analysis as well as the impact it can have on equipment and process reliability (Reliability Centered Maintenance using RCM Blitz™). For those who have taken the time to become educated in what a good RCM analysis is all about, the know power of this tool and where it applies. I know from experience, Reliability Centered Maintenance can and will deliver incredible results.

So, why am I mad at Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap?

Well, they are the two men responsible for putting the "maintenance" tag on what should have been called Reliability Centered Everything. For those who are in the know when it comes to RCM forgive me while I attempt to enlighten those who believe the word "Maintenance" somehow makes RCM incomplete. From the time I first began to learn what RCM was and how it should be applied I understood one thing to perfectly clear, the process does not work nearly as well without a cross functional team that includes representatives from Maintenance, Engineering, and Operations. This cross functional team is required because we need to understand the failure modes that could result from the context and environment in which we operate our equipment. One should note that the word operate or operator has been used more in this paragraph than the word maintenance. This makes me wonder from time to time why old Nowlan and Heap didn't call their process Reliability Centered Operations?

The second thing I learned as I studied up on RCM was the importance of discussing all likely failure modes; this would include failure modes that result from improper design, operation or maintenance as they applied to the components that make up the system. These failure modes should be discussed in terms of how each of the failures could impact our business and RCM decision logic should be applied to mitigate each failure mode by developing a corresponding maintenance task.

So, as we look at the process of analyzing failure modes we will discuss failure modes that could have been engineered into the equipment in the design phase. Excuse me, why did they not call this Reliability Centered Design?

As the team works to develop tasks for mitigating failure modes we will assign maintenance tasks to the various trades as well as equipment operators. Hello, pardon me; did you say we will assign maintenance tasks to the operators? Are you sure this is not Reliability Centered Operations? This is just down right confusing, are talking about equipment operators or maintenance mechanics?

Believe it or not even the original Reliability Centered Maintenance methodology assigned maintenance tasks to the equipment operator. The operators they were referring to were the pilot and co-pilot, each is assigned several maintenance tasks in the form of an operator check lists that are completed each time they operate the equipment. The equipment operators at manufacturing facilities around the world should also have similar tasks that put in place to ensure the equipment is fit to function as well as other tasks that look to detect potential failures based on operating or process conditions. The difference between Reliability Centered Maintenance and other tools that look to involve the operating crew in set up, change over and maintenance is when we assign tasks in RCM the operator is well aware as to why this task needs to be completed and the potential consequences to our business if we elect to not perform the task.

Thanks to Nowlan and Heap lots of things these days are becoming "Reliability Centered" today. I performed a Google search and discovered we have Reliability Centered Sales, Reliability Centered Lubrication, Reliability Centered Design, Reliability Centered Risk Management and Reliability Centered Engineering. The reality is while they all claim reliability centered something other than maintenance, I happen to know that everything they are trying to sell or do is already covered by Reliability Centered Maintenance.

While I don't wish to be any older than I am today, I sure would love to have had the opportunity to meet Stan Nowlan and Howard Heap. Our meeting would start with me asking for two signatures on my well read Nowlan and Heap RCM document and once that was completed I would ask the question that might satisfy the masses who are afraid of the word Maintenance.

"Guys, why didn't you call it Reliability Centered Everything?"



If you are interested in learning more about Reliability Centered Maintenance or RCM Blitz™, GPAllied is offering public courses in locations around the world. Please click on the RCM Blitz link for more information.

Why do RCM Implementations Fail?

RCM Implementations don't fail, believe me if you understand what your getting into upfront, use a proven process to select your asset for analysis AND you commit the resources, your implementation will be a huge success.

In looking through the above posts, I can clearly remember performing my first RCM analysis and the ordeal that followed as we struggled to:

a) See the value in the analysis we had just completed (Someone told us that RCM should be performed on every piece of equipment at our plant so we selected one of our most common assets.

b) Free up the resources necessary to implement the tasks that came out of the analysis.

Lets be honest here, one of the biggest reasons why companies fail to implement is because we as consultants don't give them clear detailed expectations on what the full RCM cycle is and in many cases when it becomes clear that Reliability Centered Maintenance is more than the analysis they have neither the time or resources necessary to implement.

This is something I think we all have struggled with at one time or another and again as I think back to the struggles of my first RCM, if understood what was really involved in completing a successful implementation I would have made darn sure we selected a winner and made very clear to my managers what the full cycle of a RCM analysis really is.

1. Select a critical asset that is suffering from equipment related operational, speed or quality losses
2. Baseline reliability data for this asset (How do you know if you improved if you never measured upfront?)
3. Perform all necessary upfront work to ensure we have the right people to perform the analysis and all the information the team will need to ensure a thorough and accurate analysis
4. Train the team and perform the analysis
5. Task assignment
6. Implementation - Get agreement upfront, this work is not hard and it should not take more than 3 months. I now have a third customer who completes implementation in 3 weeks.
7. Track and report results including Return on Investment. Step 7 is directly related to step 1.

Think about it, the companies we work with on a day to day basis to all kinds of things that are more difficult than RCM in fact the facilities their equipment resides in required a major amount of planning and resources to construct but before they started they had a plan and a budget.

I have yet to have someone call me to perform a RCM analysis on a plant that never got finished. Supply a good plan, communicate the potential benefits, resources and budget required to complete the project and we will have a winner. Last but not least, don't start your second RCM until your first on is at least 80% implemented.

Help Your Effort Off To a Good Start With a Quick Win

I couldn't begin to estimate how many times I have told new and potential customers the importance of selecting the right assets for your first RCM Blitz™ analysis. While it would be fantastic if every company we worked with understood the power and results that can be delivered through a focused and thorough analysis, the truth of the matter is there is nothing I enjoy more than being given one shot to come in and show the results that this tool can deliver.

While our customers at times can struggle through the process of implementing the tasks that were produced through the analysis they just as quickly are thrilled as they witness the improvement in reliability that is a direct result of their new maintenance strategy. With a new found sense of energy what started out as a one-time shot to give RCM Blitz™ a chance now turns into a client who understands what we mean when we say Reliability Centered Maintenance should deliver a return on investment through improved manufacturing reliability and a reduction in health, safety and environmental incidents and accidents.

When it comes to RCM there is nothing more important than getting your effort off to a good start with a quick win. Wins deliver the proof necessary to gain lasting support throughout your business and the resources required to deliver world class results.

At Allied Reliability and GPAllied we know what it takes to deliver these results. Every one of our RCM Blitz™ instructors and facilitators has years of experience in maintenance and reliability AND each has had to attend extensive training and mentoring to achieve certification in the process. The end result is a team of experts who can come to your facility and teach you how to make RCM Blitz™ part of your continuous improvement effort.

If your interested in learning more about RCM Blitz™ feel free to contact me directly through e-mail at plucknetted@alliedreliability.com or by phone at 585-329-7040. Information in regard to RCM Blitz™ and public courses available around the world can be found at http://www.alliedreliability.com/gpalliedtraining/us_middle_east_asia.asp

Wilson Sheffet

One of the first things I recognized as being different less than year after I left Eastman Kodak and started traveling the world as a consultant was the value of friendships you make in working with people for several years. In the nineteen years I worked at Kodak I made several lasting friendships, people I still call, have lunch with or play a round of golf with from time to time. When you become a consultant you find it difficult to build such bonds. It takes time build a strong friendship, for people to learn your character, to understand that trust is more than just a word.

While I have been lucky enough to make some new friends over the past 10 years, I lost a close one last night. Wilson Sheffet and I became friends through our sons, my son Jared and Wilson’s son Matt wrestled together for six years and in that time our children became friends and Wilson and Dawn became friends of my wife Leslie and I. When our sons were seniors in High School we started a weekly tradition of having breakfast on Sunday morning with Dawn and Wilson. Through that tradition a friendship grew, Wilson and I hunted together, golfed together, continued to follow our high school wrestling team always talked sports.

More important than sports we shared the ups and downs that come with raising children, the expectations you have as fathers, and the proud moments in life that can only be provided by those same children as they grow and venture out to face life head on. We shared the stress and excitement of Weddings and how complete you feel when you first hold and look into the eyes of your grandchild. Wilson and I understood that true love is not hard to find, it comes through your family, it’s the pride you feel in every accomplishment, in every small step we take together and in the smiles we share.

Good Friends are hard to come by. I will truly miss the friendship I shared with Wilson Sheffet!

RCM Blitz Continues to Grow

Every once in a while I run into someone I worked with years ago and they ask me how are things going? What is going on with RCM Blitz™ these days?

As I go through the list of where we are and who we are working with I’m sometimes even surprised myself at how the process has grown from a one man show to where we are today!

As of January 1, 2010, RCM Blitz™ Facilitator Training is now available in the following locations around the world:

• United States
• Canada
• Mexico
• England
• Ireland
• Netherlands
• Belgium
• France
• Spain
• Australia
• Puerto Rico

In 10 years the capability to deliver RCM Blitz™ around the world has grown seven times and our plan for the immediate future is to more than double that growth in the next year.

In 2007 Allied Reliability and GPAllied purchased an exclusive license for RCM Blitz™ training and facilitation, and we now have offices and resources in Europe, Australia, Central and North America.

In 2010 we presently have four public training events planned for RCM Blitz™ at various locations around the world. If you are interested in attending one of these events please click on the RCM Blitz™ Public Training Link.

Looking forward to seeing you all at one of our public training events!

Using the KISS Principal

When it comes to Reliability Engineering and Reliability Centered Maintenance I have always been a believer in the KISS principal. KISS means Keep It Simple Stupid and while some people might be offended by this I firmly believe that our profession contains a large number of people who feel a strange need to impress customers who don’t know better, by using complex reliability tools to obtain simple solutions.
In the world of RCM this most often comes into play when it comes time to determine the frequency of a failure-finding task. Having completed several courses in reliability statistics at RIT I am well aware of the statistical methods we could put to use depending on the availability of failure history and the expected level of reliability my customers would like to see from this component. Living in the real world I also have nearly thirty years experience in the world of maintenance and reliability and I also am well aware recommended industry standards for the frequency of PdM technologies for critical assets.
With over fifteen years experience in providing RCM training, mentoring and facilitation at locations around the world on hundreds of assets and thousands of failure modes I can honestly say I have yet to find more than three instances where I felt the need as a RCM facilitator to check industry standards with statistical methods and in each case the task frequency resulted in a minimal improvement to asset reliability.
Reliability Centered Maintenance on its own is a fairly complex process, if you want to make it slow, cumbersome and nearly unbearable to your RCM team, force your facilitator to lead them through statistical calculations for each failure mode that results in a PdM task. While your managers might be impressed by the calculation, your team just used a torque wrench to install the plastic cap on your valve stem. Being both blunt and brief, you’re wasting both time and money.
In completing this piece it would only be complete unless I was to say where should you use reliability statistics to determine task frequency? The following would all have to be true:
1.The component being analyzed should be a critical asset
2.The company/client you are working with has no experience with this component
3.The failure of this component has dire consequences on health, safety or environment
4.As a facilitator you are not comfortable in using industry standards for PdM frequency