A constructive critique of reliability-centered maintenance

Maintenance should be based on the intrinsic RAM properties of the machinery to be maintained, and cost-optimized. Because maintenance acts on parts, data collection and analysis must also be at that level. Data costs are falling and optimization methods are improving, yet the maintenance industry still resists change. This is at least partly because the books on RCM contain some wrong ideas which spoil it as a basis for terotechnological investigation and amelioration. The paper first demolishes some of the tenets of RCM, then shows how these myths have delayed progress and finally makes suggestions for a system of maintenance based more truly upon reliability. The points are illustrated by examples.