The focus of maintenance has changed from repairing equipment to keeping it running for longer between breakdowns. This requires more consideration of how to get longer running life between repairs, i.e. higher reliability, on a machine. To accomplish this a number of ‘tools’ have been invented and developed to allow maintainers to pinpoint problems and fix them. In this article three of the most effective ‘tools’ will be introduced. Root cause analysis, Weibull analysis and lifecycle simulation can be used to help organizations achieve proactive approaches to maintenance or adopt a “reliability based approach” to maintenance.

ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

Improving existing plant performance requires the elimination of repeat failures or emerging failures. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is undertaken as a search for the “Root Cause” of the problem. Effective RCA is really about seeking effective solutions that control the causes of problems. Like a detective we look for causes from the effects. Each cause produces the next effect. When we define a problem and begin looking for causes, we ask why of the effect, and answer with a cause. Effects become causes as we continue to ask why, and a cause and effect chain is established. The solution we select is the one that is attached to one of the causes that prevents the problem from recurring.

Understanding the cause and effect relationships of equipment and operational problems, is an essential part of an effective maintenance program. The best way to institutionalize RCA is to train all levels of an organisation, so that seeking effective solutions is applied at the workplace and capturing “good” failure data for analysis is a normal requirement.