Why should you proactively identify Failure Modes?

(Video Transcript)

Hi everyone. My name is Nancy Regan, and I’m going to explain why it can be absolutely critical that you proactively identify Failure Modes for your equipment.

I’m in Huntsville, Alabama in my hometown, and it is 18 degrees Fahrenheit. There is ice and snow on the ground, and you can see that it is still snowing now. When it snows in Huntsville…well…not really when, but if, because it is a very rare event. The last time this happened was maybe four or five years ago.

But when it does happen, the city is just not used to it. And we don’t have the kind of infrastructure available to salt all the streets and take care of inclement weather the way people do, say in the Northeast and Boston, where I grew up.

So when it happens, it has significant Consequences. And this time the city has been shut down now for two days. This reminds me about Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM).

One of the misconceptions about Reliability Centered Maintenance is that you have to identify every single Failure Mode that could possibly affect a piece of equipment. Well, that just isn’t true. RCM gives us very specific criteria for what Failure Modes we should be identifying for our equipment. And one of them is those Failure Modes that are unlikely to occur but have severe consequences.

Now, just like if it snows and there is freezing rain in Huntsville, Alabama, it closes the city down for a couple of days, there may be some Failure Modes that could affect your equipment that are very unlikely to happen. But if they did, they could have severe Consequences – like maybe shut down your operations for a week. Or if you’re in a military environment, maybe it would stop a mission. And maybe it could even injure or kill someone.

So that’s why it’s so important to proactively identify what could cause your equipment to fail. Then you’re in a position of strength to decide what, or if anything, you should be doing proactively to anticipate it.

So, there you have it. Just like snow and ice in Huntsville, Alabama has a serious impact on the city, there could be some Failure Modes that maybe haven’t happened yet with your equipment, but could happen and could have severe Consequences.

In that case, it’s really important to proactively identify what they are. And you can use Reliability Centered Maintenance to do exactly that. I’m Nancy Regan from freezing, snowy, Huntsville, Alabama, but it’s all in the name of Reliability. Thank you for watching.