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Overview of RCM2 Analysis

Reliability-centered maintenance is “A process used to determine the maintenance requirements of any physical asset in its operating context” (John Moubray, Reliability-Centered Maintenance, second edition).

RCM2 is the reliability-centered maintenance process practiced by Bentley APM consultants. One of the features of RCM2 that distinguishes it from other interpretations of the RCM philosophy is that cross-functional groups of users and maintainers perform the analyses. After training, these analysis teams apply the process to their assets to produce robust and cost-effective asset reliability programs.

Performing an RCM2 analysis involves identifying assets, the environment and conditions in which they are used, their functions and performance requirements, as well as the ways in which they can fail and the causes and consequences of failure. Using this information, you can develop failure management policies for each asset. From a rigorous and thorough analysis of key assets, you can develop effective reliability programs for preventing or managing asset failures.

Components of an Analysis

The following diagram illustrates the components of an RCM2 analysis created in APM.

To perform an RCM2 analysis, the analysis team:

•	Selects the assets to be analyzed, which form the analysis asset hierarchy, a snapshot taken from the site’s physical hierarchy.

•	Identifies one or more functions for each asset, including the asset’s performance standards.

•	For each function, identifies the ways in which the asset can fail (functional failures), the events or conditions that cause failures (failure modes), and the effect of each failure mode.

•	Identifies failure consequences. For key assets, the team can perform failure mode risk assessments to determine which failure modes have the highest priority for implementation.

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Evaluates the consequences of the failure mode. They determine whether the failure is evident or hidden and then categorize the consequence as safety-related, environmental, operational, or non-operational. A recommended action is selected for each failure mode, for example, condition-based maintenance or modification/redesign.

•	Optionally evaluates the economic feasibility of implementing proposed maintenance tasks. With the help of the maintenance efficiency index (MEI), APM uses the avoidance savings and task costs to determine if the proposed tasks are justified or not.

•	Depending on the type of action, adds indicators, one or more corrective tasks, or standard documents to the action plan. In some cases, one or more secondary actions can be recommended for a failure mode.

In addition to these components, the decision diagram provides a graphical summary of the hidden, safety, environmental, operational, and non-operational consequences that the team identified for all assets in the analysis.

Using Isograph Availability Workbench

Using the integration functionality in APM, you can export failure modes from analyses in APM to the Isograph Availability Workbench (AWB), where you can analyze and optimize the data. You can then import optimization results into the APM analysis, review the recommendations in the Optimization view, and make appropriate changes to the action plans.

Before you can export failure modes, you must have installed the Availability Workbench with a valid license. Your APM license must include the Reliability Strategy Development and Implementation and Performance Management modules, and the modules must be active on the sites where you want to use the functionality.

For information about using this functionality, see APM Integration Guide for Isograph Availability Workbench.

RCM2 and Failure Tracking

If your organization tracks asset failures using APM, you can link each failure record that references a failure mode to an existing RCM2 analysis. You can also use a failure record as the starting point for a new analysis. For more information, see Failure Tracking.

Referencing SAP Plant Maintenance Objects in RCM2 Analyses

When APM has been configured to interact with an SAP Plant Maintenance system, the SAP Portal view is added to sites. Additional or replacements tabs are available on the Assets, Reliability Program, and Work Management views.

The SAP Portal view provides the following tabs and sub-tabs:

•	Functional Locations

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Equipment

•	Task Lists – General, Functional Locations, Equipment, and Operations

•	Maintenance Items – Maintenance Items, Functional Location Object Lists, and Equipment Object Lists,

•	Maintenance Plans

•	Notifications – Notifications, Items, Causes, Tasks, and Activities

•	Maintenance Orders – Orders, Operations, Object Lists - Functional Locations, Object Lists - Equipment, and Costs

•	Planning Summaries – Functional Locations and Equipment

Monthly planning summaries list functional locations and equipment and provide counts of their downtime, recorded and completed notifications, planned and unplanned maintenance orders, and more. Summaries tabs are available in the Assets, Work Management, and SAP Portal views.

When an APM asset references either an SAP equipment or functional location, information about the SAP object is available in the Asset window. Select the Properties view and SAP tab to view the reference. Select the SAP Properties view to see detailed information about the SAP object. Similarly, in the SAP object’s window, the Asset Properties view displays information about the asset that references it.

Similar information is available in Standard Task and Maintenance Item windows. And when a checksheet is created from a standard task linked to an SAP maintenance item or task list, the standard task’s SAP information is copied to the checksheet. You can view it in the Properties view, Source tab.

For several SAP objects, the property window’s Usage view contains tabs that list associated APM objects: checksheets, standard tasks, action plans, and proposed tasks. These tabs are available for maintenance items, maintenance plans, general task lists, equipment task lists, and functional location task lists.

For example, a reliability engineer can reconcile the action plans developed in a strategy development analysis with actual maintenance items in SAP. When creating action plans, the engineer browses the SAP data, using filters to narrow the search for a maintenance item that matches the action plan. When the item is selected, its number is recorded in the action plan for later reference, and the engineer can then mark the action plan as “Implementation completed”. At any time, APM users can view details about the referenced maintenance item by double-clicking its icon to open a properties window. These interoperability features help users to quickly and accurately ensure that their action plans are properly implemented in SAP, without having to flip back and forth between systems.

Tip: Interoperability settings at the enterprise and site levels determine the SAP information available on sites. In the Enterprise window, Integrations view, you can create interoperability profiles to be assigned to individual sites. Profile settings determine if SAP objects, APM objects, or both are available in the site’s Reliability Program and Work Management views. In the site’s interoperability settings, you can select the plants used to filter lists of SAP objects.

Referencing SAP Objects in Analyses

In a strategy development analysis, SAP Plant Maintenance objects are available in three locations:

•	In Feasibility evaluations on failure modes, you can select an SAP item for the proposed task on the Reliability Program tab.

When action plans are updated from the Feasibility evaluation, the proposed task is referenced in the SAP Tasks tab.

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In primary and secondary action plans, you can select an SAP task list, maintenance item, or maintenance plan, or task list operation for corrective tasks. This example of the Maintenance Action Plan window shows both APM Tasks and SAP Tasks tabs because the site’s profile makes information from both systems available.

•	In the action plan’s Details area, SAP information (System condition and Work center) can replace APM information (Operating condition and Maintenance group).

For information about viewing, filtering, and browsing SAP objects, see Viewing SAP Plant Maintenance Data in APM.

For information about setting up interoperability, see APM Interoperability Guide for SAP Plant Maintenance.