RCM Contract Facilitation
Background
Applying RCM correctly takes both time and resources; there is a real risk that RCM-derived maintenance will be superficial (and, depending on the equipment, possibly dangerous) if the approach is not applied correctly. The risks and costs associated with a superficial/dangerous RCM analysis can be huge - far exceeding the upfront cost and effort required to apply RCM correctly. In particular, for an organisation with high value assets, the investment required to get the maintenance right is often a drop in the ocean compared with cost of getting it wrong.
Applying RCM correctly involves an ‘RCM Analysis Group’ working under the guidance of an RCM Facilitator. The ‘RCM Analysis Group’ is made up of people who know the equipment best whereas the facilitator must have a very firm grasp of the RCM approach and how it is applied. The efficacy of the resulting RCM analysis rests heavily on the RCM Facilitator’s shoulders.
Demand for Mutual Consultants to act as Contract Facilitators rose significantly in the early 2000s and over the years we have helped clients in a wide range of industry sectors and have facilitated hundreds of RCM analyses (including many large and complex assets).
The Role of a Contract Facilitator
As Contract Facilitators, our role is to conduct the RCM analysis meetings, ‘coach’ the RCM Analysis Group members where necessary (to ensure that the analysis group follows the RCM approach correctly) and document the decisions made.
The following outlines the key elements of an RCM Facilitation role:
- Plan the project, set up the administration necessary to conduct the meetings and ensure that the relevant staff are released (ie ‘project management’) – this element is usually borne by the client directly
- Conduct the RCM analysis meetings
- ‘Coach’ the personnel involved where necessary
- Document the decisions made (we always use our RCM Desktop software) - this includes, where appropriate:
- Written notes on the group discussion that took place when answering each question asked in the RCM Decision Logic
- Fully-worked worth-doing and FFI calculations
- Providing a comprehensive audit trail for each Failure Mode’s “journey” through the RCM Decision Logic
- Write the individual “raw” Maintenance Tasks for each Failure Mode
- Package the raw Maintenance Tasks into sensible Task Groups (according to equipment, skill, task interval, etc) ready for export to the client's CMMS
- Prepare a detailed report for each analysis for submission to the auditor
- Process reviewers'/auditor's comments and issue the final Audit Report.
Our responsibility for each analysis concludes with the issue of the final Audited Report.
Benefits
Using Mutual Consultants as RCM Contract Facilitators has a number of benefits:
- Experience - over the years we have helped clients in a wide range of industry sectors and have facilitated hundreds of RCM analyses (including many large and complex systems). Clients often engage us as Contract Facilitators in the following circumstances:
- To carry out a pilot study when the client first starts applying RCM
- Where the downstream benefits of RCM are needed quickly and to a very high standard
- Where there is limited availability in-house of individuals to be trained as a facilitator.
- Quality - we have been engaged in very high risk environments where the downstream quality of the output is critical
- Speed - our facilitators are very practised and quick
- Complexity - we are often engaged to assist clients to apply RCM to very complex or large systems
- Software - where we act as Contract Facilitators we always use our RCM Desktop software. This can reduce the time taken to document an RCM analysis by up to 50% and delays the upfront cost of buying a software licence.