FMEA, and RCA, Got You Overwhelmed, and Paralyzed?

I get it, Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) are hard or at the very least hard to execute consistently. If you look at the amount of them that you need to do or should do, it can be quite overwhelming. Many sites get paralyzed by this and do very little or nothing with these very important tools. Just like many of the other elements we talk about that are needed for reliability improvement, it is critical to create a plan and set an expectation. It must be broken in into manageable bite size pieces. 

For sites that are just beginning to complete RCAs and FMEAs I often suggest the following goal: What if each reliability engineer or maintenance engineer committed to one FMEA and 2 RCAs per month? Would this be doable in your organization? The expectation is that these would be good quality FMEAs of 200 lines or more and RCAs that are more than 5 whys or fish bones. They all need to be taken through implementation and follow up even if that portion occurs after the month they are scheduled in. I would suggest that FMEA be selected based on "leveragability." What I mean by that is, select your target assets not just based on criticality or failure rate but also based on how many assets that you can apply the FMEA against while developing equipment maintenance plans and systemic improvements. Think of it as, what assets can I get the most bang for the buck?

If your site were to adopt this goal and execute on it then by the end of the year you would have 12 FMEAs implemented and 24 problems addressed with RCA for each reliability or maintenance engineer.  Imagine the change in performance you would experience with this volume of issues leaving the system. 

I get it, these tools can be overwhelming, but if you set a goal and hold each other accountable then your organization can be substantially better than most of your competition within the first year. 

PEMAC Conference Discussion About The Lies Reliability People Tell.

We talked about lies nothing but lies… In our PEMAC Conference table sessions we talked about some of the maintenance and reliability models and tools that we use and some of the subtleties that often aren’t understood or taught correctly. 

We discussed the six failure curves of RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) and how many think and explain them as relating to types of asset or classes of assets but in reality they relate to types of failure modes of assets. This means that one asset could have many failure modes that relate to different curves so suggesting that one of the curves represents an asset class is incorrect. This explanation helps individuals to then understand that 68% of the failure modes are infant mortality according to the Nolan and Heap study, but 68% of the assets don’t always fail in the infant phase. It is like the difference in an ice cream shop saying 68% of our flavors have chocolate in them but it does not mean that 68% of the ice cream the shop sells has chocolate in it. Some people like vanilla and maybe a lot do. If so, you could sell a majority of vanilla even though most of your other flavors have chocolate in them. With this logic, you could have 68% of your failure modes be infant mortality but when you look at the number of failures they would be a majority of wear out because of the environment or equipment type or process.

The second lie we talked about was RCA (Root Cause Analysis). The table discussed that there is no such thing as root cause because every single problem has root causes. All problems need both actions that happen instantaneously and conditions that have existed over time. The example we used was fire. Fire does not have a cause it has three causes. Ignition which is likely instantaneous and fuel and oxygen which are likely conditions that have existed over time. The key is it takes all three causes not just one root cause.

We finished up by talking with the group about where and how they could use these learnings in their site to improve their reliability programs. 

Do you agree with our thoughts? Share your opinions below. 

5 Thoughts That Can Drive Success with Reliability Centered Maintenance and Equipment Maintenance Plans

1.   You can not do RCM on every asset or all at once. Break it down into manageable chunks of your asset list based on risk to the business. Create a plan. Consider a tiered process for building maintenance strategies based on asset criticality. 

One example might be:

• Top critical asset use Full blown RCM Analysis
• Upper mid criticality assets use Failure Modes Effects Analysis (FMEA) or its simplified version SFMEA to identify failure modes based on operating context
• Middle to lower criticality use failure mode libraries or database tools

2.    Once you understand your common failure modes from RCM or FMEA, focus on mapping the Predictive Maintenance (PdM) technologies currently deployed at your site to the failure modes exhibited. This will reduce the number of Preventive maintenance (PM) task required and the total cost of the asset management plan. PdM normally takes less time, does not induce failures, and allows for the equipment to be running as opposed to invasive PM activities which require equipment shutdowns and can induce infant mortality.

3.    Schedule a standing meeting to tackle one RCM or section of an RCM or FMEA per week per group. It should be on your maintenance schedule and be as sacred to those scheduled to attend as your PM work. Create a project plan based the number of teams, the process you are using and the number of resource hours you have based on the weekly meetings.

4.   In all but your most safety, environmental, and production critical assets, the plans developed don't have to be perfect. Get them close and use continuous improvement techniques to refine the RCM and the asset management plan over time. This will allow you to implementing sooner and generating results faster. It also removes you from the world of analysis paralysis.

5. Stay focused and stay the course. It takes time. Reward your teams success. Support them and remove barriers to their sucess. 

I wish you luck as you tackle RCM and lower your risk and cost!