Page 615 - Marine Structural Design

Chapter 34 Risk Centered Maintenance 591

34.1.3 RCM History
RCM was first formulated for the commercial aircrafl industry in the late 1960s (Jones, 1995,
Rausand and Vatn, 1997). It started as a result of using of reliability methods by two US
airliners to analyze the data they collected. For instance they plotted the probability of failure
of components against age. To their surprise, it was found that only about 10% of the whole
range of units became less reliable with advancing age. This was not because the intervals
were not short enough, or inspections were not sufficiently thorough. Rather, it was contrary to
expectations, for many items, the frequency of failures did not increase with operating age.
Consequently, a maintenance policy based exclusively on some maximum operating age
would, have little or no effect on the failure rate, no matter what the age limit was. This forced
them to re-think the basis for preventive maintenance (PM), which at that time consisted of
time-based overhauls with a considerable cost.
The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) that is responsible for regulating airline activities in the
USA, was frustrated, because it was not possible for airlines to control the failure rates of
certain engines by any feasible changes in the PM policy. As a result, in 1960 a task force was
formed, consisting of representatives from both the FAA and the airlines, to investigate the
capabilities of preventive maintenance.
The task resulted in a FAA / Industry Reliability Program, which was issued in November
1961. The program was directed specifically at propulsion engine reliability. Further work
during the 1960s in the development of PM programs for new aircrafts, showed that more
efficient programs could be developed through the use of a logical decision processes. This
work was performed by a Maintenance Steering Group (MSG-1, 1968), that consists of
representatives from the aircraft manufactures, airline companies, and the FAA.
This group developed the first version of RCM, and it was issued as a handbook in 1968. This
new maintenance philosophy was designated MSG-1, and was used as basis for development
of the PM program for Boeing 747 (Jumbo-jet). In due time, the RCM-concept was further
developed for use by the aircraft industry. Two revisions were made, an MSG-2 document
issued in 1970, and an MSG-3 in 1980.
After the initial use of the wide-bodied aircraft (Boeing 747, DC 10, LlOll Tristar) the
method was adapted and used by a European aircraft industry (Concorde, Airbus A300) and
the latest type of aircraft from USA (e.g. Boeing 757,767).
In the early 1970s, the US Navy started to apply the RCM methodology to both new and in-
service aircrafts. Shortly thereafter, the Naval Systems Command applied RCM to surface
ships, and in 1980 RCM became the required method for defining PM programs for all new
Naval surface ships. The Canadian Navy then followed the same steps. The US Army and the
Air Force also adopted the RCM approach.
In 1983 a pilot study was initiated to testing the reliability of the method for nuclear power
plants by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). They evaluated whether a maintenance
method that has been successllly applied in aircrafts and ships may also be suitable for
nuclear power plants. From a system point of view all are highly redundant complex and have
high reliability. They are all regulated by governmental agencies (the airlines are monitored by
FAA, the military has Congress, and nuclear power plants are controlled by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission). EPRI (1985) documented that RCM applications to nuclear power
plants are promising. Several labor and material intensive maintenance tasks that were
performed at specified time intervals before applying RCM were now performed only when