One company tried to connect its CMMS with its RCM program. Not just the usual upload of the RCM strategy from the RCM application to the CMMS but a more organic day-to-day integration of the two processes.
However, they ran into difficulties. The CMMS being based in a relational database tries to codify as much information as possible in an attempt to standardize maintenance concepts. RCM (the JA1011 process), on the other hand, does not concern itself with codification or textual standardization. It focuses entirely on understanding failure behavior and its consequences. I think there is a conflict here.
The conflict is most apparent when considering the RCM Effects. Effects (RCM Question 4) is free text created by humans during an RCM review meeting. As such it does not lend itself easily to codification or standardization. (Although various RCM software applcations do try.) CMMS consultants attempt to include RCM (at least in name) in their process maps. But they tend to ignore “Effects” or relegate it to lower prominence. The result of this is that technicians and engineers are faced with traditional drop down lists of short phrases that are supposed to embody the RCM knowledge base.
Since the free text Effects are not easily accommodated, the drop down menu choices tend to be abstract. They often are difficult to match well to the current situation represented by a work order. As a result, the selections are inconsistently applied to work orders by planners and technicians. The default selection “other” is frequently invoked. Of course, reliability analysis, then becomes difficult and inconclusive.
How can we ameliorate this situation?
We start by recognizing some fundamental disconnects that characterize most CMMS implementations. RCM concepts are basic and simple but seldom intuitive. CMMS designers and implementers are not likely to have been trained in nor to have practiced RCM. This is the first disconnect. They tend to gloss over Question 4 because it does not fit the application’s user interface or philosophy. The process becomes “RCM related” in name only. In fact, we’re back to the same old failure code culture of the past fifty years.
RCM practitioners, themselves, particularly those from the “Moubray school”, are not likely to have been trained as “reliability analysts”. This is a second disconnect.
These disconnects encouraged three silos, loosely speaking, to have evolved in maintenance and reliability. Each have their respective proponents and specialized consultants:
- CMMS experts, who tend to focus on the benefits of planning and scheduling, TPM, LEAN, and so on.
- RCM experts who teach the principles of and assist in the implementation of “initial” RCM, and
- Reliability Analysis experts who focus on software applications based on Weibull analysis and Monte Carlo simulation.
Of course, unifying the three is precisely the point of Living RCM (LRCM). Resistence to such integration comes from years of separation of the three tracks. Fortunately, the CMMS expert’s natural avoidance of “free text” and the RCM practitioner’s aversion to reliability analysis are already melting away in some vanguard maintenance organizations.
© 2011 – 2014, Murray Wiseman. All rights reserved.