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!