Myth 3. RCM is only for rotating equipment not for static equipment

This post is part of a ten-part series aimed at increasing the awareness of RCM as a fundamental element of asset management. We are driving to stop poor practice being thought of as leading practice!


No matter where you travel throughout the world you hear this statement. The result of failed implementations and smart marketing, this statement has allowed several splinter methodologies to spring up all over the world. Risk Based Inspection, Safety Instrumented Systems, and more recently Risk Based Maintenance are all derivative methodologies that have sprung up, each with an extremely narrow focus.


For example, RBI is focused only on the containment function whereas SIS focuses purely on the Hidden safety functions and so on. The appearance of these splinter methodologies has also given rise to entire industries, each one protecting their commercial interests by promoting very restricting barriers to entry.


First, why is it a problem? Regardless of the technical integrity of each of these methods, there are some substantial problems caused by the implementation of splinter methods.


For instance; when implementing RCM the analysts need to focus very closely on the expertise and experience of a range of methodologies and disciplines. This immediately allows for a fully cross functional approach to be developed to the management of the physical asset base. Operations, instrumentation technicians, maintenance mechanics, maintenance electricians, equipment inspectors, safety and management are just some of the managerial disciplines that could become involved in an RCM analysis.


There are many benefits of a cross functional approach, but the principle advantage is that all stakeholders are able to be involved in defining the functions and failure management strategies for a given physical asset, the secondary advantage is that management disciplines begin to work across the artificial barriers created within many companies, contributing greatly to the wider task of asset management.


This ensures a focus on all of the functions, and on their impacts on other areas of the asset, rather than focusing on the asset from a one dimensional point of view. Within RBI, for example, a lot of effort is rightly spent on analyzing the degradation rates of metals, using generally corrosion and operations expertise. Driven by inspectors, with a lot of input from closely related disciplines, the output is often predictable.


An inspection plan, which does not identify itself as maintenance, which is often managed, scheduled and executed via different resources than maintenance plans, reinforcing artificial barriers within the workforce regarding the management of the physical assets. If you look at it on a larger scale you get inspectors permanently separating themselves from maintainers, certification processes that only certify inspectors rather than including others who have been trained in reliability techniques, and it all becomes an effort in self preservation and protection.

Yet this is only a small part of RCM.

From the very beginning RCM has included a focus on static equipment; in fact chapter 9 of the original report was titled “RCM Analysis of Structures”. It recognized that with structural items almost all functional failures will have an impact on safety, meaning that most of the failure modes fell directly into the Safety consequence category of the decision diagram. However, it did not restrict itself to the containment function only, recognizing that structural and fixed assets often have more functions than are readily evident.

It also recognized that failure in structural items meant only one of two possible routine maintenance outcomes;

• On-condition inspections for all items, and


• Preventive replacement for safe-life elements

The focus of RCM in structures is on managing the “fatigue life” of the asset, incorporating all of the possible causes or accelerants of fatigue such as load changes and variance and corrosion, focusing directly on areas that are often described as not suitable for an RCM analysis.


In summary, RCM as it was originally intended is an extremely adequate tool for the analysis and management of structural and fixed assets such as vessels, piping, civil structures and supports. It allows these assets to continue to be analyzed within the multi functional framework provided by RCM and allows for the creation of detailed and concise inspection plans as part of the larger asset maintenance plan.