RCM: Reliability Centered Maintenance

Definition:

Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is an analysis technique that has its origins in the aircraft industry.

Aim:

RCM increases the availability of the machine by answering the following questions:

  • Which components need to be maintained?
  • What type of maintenance needs to be performed on the components to be maintained? The type of maintenance refers here to: curative maintenance, preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance.
  • Which components need to be kept in stock?

VPE’s approach:

One of the pitfalls of RCM is that everything stops during this analysis. RCM only provides benefits if the RCM results are translated into maintenance tasks.

VPE concentrates on a complete, fully-fledged implementation once the RCM has been carried out. (See the section on drawing up maintenance tasks)