Reliability Management Ltd

The expectations organisations have of their physical assets have changed dramatically. The principal driving force behind these changed expectations has been remarkable growth in mechanisation and automation. This dependence takes many forms. Mechanisation means that downtime does not only affect output, costs, customer service and product quality but can also affects safety and environmental integrity. In some parts of the world, the point has been reached where organizations either conform to society's safety and environmental expectations, or they get shut down. This adds an order of magnitude to the dependence of business on the integrity of its physical assets – one that goes beyond cost and that becomes a simple matter of organisational survival.

If the consequences of failure of a physical asset are high they may warrant an investment to identify, justify, prioritise and implement improvements. The best way to do this is to engage with all the stakeholders of the asset, including its users and all those responsible for its reliability, and follow a comprehensive, structured,auditable and proven analysis process.

Such a process should include:

1. A proper understanding of the background of the asset - how it is being used, its history, any modifications and plans for its future use

2. What the users want it to do (its functions)

3. How it fails to fulfil these functions, both in the past, the present and the future. All causes of failure should be considered including deterioration, operations aspects, human error, training and procedural shortcomings, spares issues and equipment design

4. What happens as a result of each failure and how much each matters

5. What can be done to manage each failure (through maintenance, physical redesign, training, procedures etc)

6. Which improvements should be implemented, when, how and by whom

To identify and evaluate a comprehensive set of failure management policies it is necessary to look at both the technical and the business perspectives, and the perspectives of different stakeholders - particularly Operations and Maintenance. Since issues often occur at interfaces - both physical and organisational - this should be done with a team and consider a complete asset.

The Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) process was developed in the Civil Aviation Industry and has been used extensively in that industry for over 40 years. RCM has been proven by the dramatic improvements in aircraft reliability and cost performance over that period. It provides the perfect framework for the approach described above and can be applied to physical assets in any industry.

Reliability Management provides training and consulting in RCM and related techniques and has experience of reliability improvement projects in a wide range of industries. Further information, examples and contact details can be found on this website.