Preventing financial, environmental and safety related business losses caused by critical assets is undoubtedly the central role of reliability engineers, maintenance practitioners and the discipline of physical asset management.

Since the turn of the century we have seen physical and financial asset management drawing closer and closer together. Particularly with some of the work that has gone into the fields of asset economics in the UK Utility and Rail industries.

And the timing could not be better. Since about the mid 1990's we have been firmly on the radar of corporate management. Initially as a source of costs to be controlled, but over time enterprises around the world have come to realize that physical asset management is source of significant competitive advantage.

When the axe needs to fall in a big way, industries like ours tend to look immediately towards the CAPEX budget. Why? Because it's normally the largest pool of discretionary spending that exists. 

And some of it isn't even that discretionary.

There are a range of unsubstantiated myths floating around the maintenance discipline relating to RCM. I will try to address some of them in these pages at one time or another, but today I really want to look in detail at one of the most insidious of them.

Myth: RCM is only for Critical Assets

My feelings on criticality are clear. Many of us apply it without thinking it through. We think that "everybody does this, so it must be right". Yet the facts speak for themselves.

Cost cutting is done with a scalpel, not a meat cleaver.

If you must cut costs and if you are responsible then you must, you need to do it controllably, without any adverse ramifications. You need to keep your eyes firmly on the prize of maximum cost effectiveness.

Europump is dedicated to energy efficiency globally and they regularly produce reports related to the issue of fluid transportation systems as they call them. (E.g. pumps right?)

In a report from 2005 (I think) they mentioned that 20% of all energy in Europewas consumed by pumping systems. Wow...

Standardizing their asset maintenance and reliability initiatives across the organization, implementing RCM and condition based approaches, and implementing mobile working with their asset maintenance programs. This is according to the latest research published by the Aberdeen Group in their June report on Enterprise Asset Management.

Regardless of any crush on resources 65% of best in class manufacturers are implementing reliability as a means of maximizing their return on assets, with 61% doing it to reduce the risks of failure of critical assets.

Meanwhil ...

The RCM Standard, SAE JA1011, emphasizes the need for facilitators and analysis teams to list all of the functions of the asset or asset system. This refers specifically to all primary and secondary functions.

Secondary functions (or passive functions) are all other functions that users require of their assets not included in the primary function.

One of the categories given as a guide for defining secondary functions is that of Efficiency / Economy. It has been the experience of t ...

When training RCM facilitators, (or any leaders of reliability change for that matter), I am always sure to make sure I show them how to build a business case, and how to "tell the story".

This isn't your run of the mill "How RCM saves you money" article. But hopefully it will give RCM Facilitators and Analysts some capability to determine the value from their studies, and to use that to build momentum for change in their companies.

The ability to implement is a rare skill, and in times of rapid change it becomes extremely valuable. Showing value from work is something that ...

I think we are all of the same view that risk management is one of the growing areas of importance within the asset management arena. You see it creeping into every discussion, every solution discussed, and it is becoming one of the buzzwords of our time when dealing with how to extract greater economic value from the maintenance or asset management processes. So far so good!

There is now a lot of information out there on risk assessments. From criticality and vulnerability analyses, to probabilistic and stochastic analyses techniques, through to samp ...

Mining companies are at the top, (or near the top) of a boom in commodities prices that looks set to continue for some years yet. The entrance into the consumer markets of China and India has irrevocably changed the familiar boom and bust scenario of this sector. As long as these economies continue along their pathway of rapid development, then the high levels of demand for commodities such as metals, and petroleum, will also continue. This issue is discussed at length in my new book, The Maintenance Scorecard.

For those in the mining community, this represents a once in a lifetime growth opp ...