1421 S. Sheridan/P.O. Box 1260
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74101

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

August, Jim Applied reliability centered maintenance / by Jim August.p.cm.

TS192.A94 1999

658.2'02--dc21

99-050100

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover Design: Shanon Garvin and Brian Firth

Layout: Brian Firth

Printed in the United States of America

03 02 01 00 99 1 2 3 4 5

Acknowledgements

... a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out

Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Deacon's Masterpiece" (with credit to Stan Nolan & Howard Heap)

Elements of reliability centered maintenance (RCM) aren't new; time based maintenance, make-or-buy, re-work, performance testing and corrective maintenance (CM) have been terms used traditionally to describe aspects of scheduled maintenance programs. On another level, RCM brought order to a confused and complex subject. Like Inuit (Eskimo) language's many terms for snow, maintenance has many descriptions. The beauty of RCM is the order that it brings to these terms in the context of a strategy.

Strategy is an underlying theme of RCM. As in chess or war, strategy requires supporting tactics. These are mastered as preliminaries. Without appreciating the tactics of maintenance, the need and value for...