ABSTRACT
This chapter presents important aspects of Reliability centered maintenance (RCM). RCM is a systematic process used to determine what has to be accomplished to ensure that any physical facility is able to continuously meet its designed functions in its current operating context. RCM leads to a maintenance program that focuses preventive maintenance on specific failure modes likely to occur. The RCM process is applied to determine particular maintenance tasks to be performed, as well as to influence item reliability and maintainability during design. Initially the RCM process is applied during the design and development phase and then reapplied, as appropriate, during the operational phase to sustain an effective maintenance program based on experience in the field. Age exploration is an important factor in establishing an RCM program. It provides a mechanism to vary a maintenance program’s key aspects to optimize the process.
