Breaking Traditional Maintenance & Reliability Thinking, Paper360º September/October 2022

I had an interesting question from someone who had taken my 3-day introduction to Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM2™) course. The question revolved around a process system that had not yet been analyzed using the RCM2 method.

The question asks if the user should switch to a more wear resistant material (in this case, stainless steel) in the evidence of a wear related failure. Traditional thinking will say yes, switch to SS because it is better; but the RCM2 fundamental principles may lead you in a different direction. It reminded me of a time, many years ago, when I was interviewing for a reliability engineering position. The HR manager went over a few details about the employer and I asked her what she thought a reliability engineer did. Without hesitation, she stated, “They find out why something broke and fix it so it can never break again.” Now that is traditional thinking, and there is a lot of error packed into her response. 

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