Why focus on maintenance?
- To ensure that the maintenance activities actively support Company's corporate goals, mission and vision
- To ensure focus on safety and environmental issues in connection with maintenance activities
- To optimize plant / fleet availability by focusing maintenance on high and medium risk items
- To realize cost-benefits in terms of saving direct maintenance cost
- To ensure compliance with external requirements (statutory, class, vetting , SOLAS/MARPOL etc)
What is RCM?
A systematic risk-based approach to create an accurate, well targeted and optimized maintenance package that aims at achieving optimum reliability for a facility. RCM determines the maintenance requirements of assets in their operating context.
SAE JA1011 – ''Evaluation Criteria for Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) processes"
defines RCM as…
"…a specific process used to identify the policies which must be implemented to manage the failure modes which could cause the functional failure of any physical asset in a given operating context."
RCM covers static & rotary equipment, electrical & instrumentation items for all failure modes. The RCM methodology originates from the commercial aviation industry during the 50s and 60s. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) presented the first draft for a RCM standard and further developed the methodology. Many different outlines for a RCM standard have since then been presented, but the first recognized all-industry commercial standard is the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) JA1011 "Evaluation Criteria for RCM Processes".
The simplified RCM process adopted by AGT involves a systematic risk based approach to create an accurate and optimized maintenance package that aims at achieving optimum reliability for a facility. The maintenance strategy and task package is developed to mitigate the failure causes / root causes identified, which cause the functional failures. AGT has developed its simplified RCM approach through various projects carried out for the oil and gas industry.
Experience shows that the simplified method accomplishes maintenance planning in much lesser time and with lower resource utilization than the conventional RCM approaches, but without losing the objective of identifying and focusing on the high risks items.
AGT can offer RCM in two methods.
- Functional failure analysis
- Simplified approach using FMEA & risk analysis
Several studies have been performed for oil & gas facilities using simplified approach which is efficient and requires only reasonable time & resource.
Risk evaluation is done at failure mode level for each item (tag or equipment) in four areas. Configured risk matrices are used to address Safety, Environmental, Economic (Business Interruption) and an optional area such as repair cost, reputation risks etc. These matrices are developed using the company's acceptance criteria in line with the company's objectives on the levels of risk associated with safety, environmental and business.
AGT has done several RCM projects for onshore and offshore process facilities and for LNG & non-LNG ships. Though the primary objective of performing RCM is to increase the reliability of the equipments with a focused maintenance program, RCM does result in many direct & indirect benefits. |
