A reliability based maintenance policy: A case study

Reliability centered maintenance (RCM) incorporates sound guidance for managers who wish to attain high standards of maintenance at their operating plants. Since the amount and type of maintenance which is applied depend strongly on the machine or component's age (decreasing, constant or increasing failure rate), on its replacement cost as well as on the cost and safety consequences of system failure, a careful analysis of the system components based on their reliability data should be done in order to optimize the maintenance program. This paper describes the methodology which was used at an aluminum plant in order to select critical machines and to develop an optimal maintenance policy based on reliability data of each machine, safety consequences of system failure, lead time and repair time, and components criticality.