John Q. Todd

Sr. Business Consultant/Product Researcher

Total Resource Management (TRM), Inc.

Having been a Reliability Engineer, I have used a variety of tools external to our core EAM (like Maximo) to gather data, perform analyses, structure approaches, and develop strategies. The results of those activities were then used to refine the workflows, business rules, and other elements of the EAM. It was the constant circle of improvement that worked well, it just never happened with a single tool.

Now with the advent of the Reliability Strategies add-on into MAS 8.11, a fair amount of the initial structure and definition of the typical RCM study can occur in MAS, greatly reducing the distance from the RCM study to changes to the EAM. Reducing the distance and increasing the velocity of the value-add changes to your EAM are good goals to always have in mind. Go from idea to implementation quickly.

What is RCM?

Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) is certainly not new. This methodology has been with us for a very long time. In essence it begins with the gathering of each piece of equipment you care about, listing out what it is supposed to do, how it can fail, what could cause those failures, what are the consequences of these failures, how critical (or not) the failure is, and what can be done to eliminate or greatly reduce the failure itself or the consequences.

Failure Modes and Effects (and Criticality) Analysis – FMEA/FMECA is a central tool to an RCM study. Often done with specifically structured spreadsheets, the FMEA is the listing of the equipment, how it can fail, what the effects are, and optionally how critical the failure is to the organization.

Of course, there are many variations to the methods used to conduct RCM and FMEAs… and an equal number of opinions as to how to begin, their scope, and their true value to an organization. Ask any RCM/FMEA consultant and you will surely be educated as to why their approach is best. 😉

No matter the approach you take or the tools you use, the most difficult part of the RCM/FMEA is getting that initial list of equipment and failures down on paper for your team to agree with. Many, many hours can be spent dreaming up failure modes and potential consequences that very quickly gum up the conversation. RCM projects can die out quickly due to this first hurdle and never provide any value. Your team(s) can quickly get down into the minutia of failures and their causes… and what to do about them… derailing your goals and simply adding angst to your already busy organization.

How to jump start with MAS RS?

This is where solutions like MAS Reliability Strategies can have a huge impact on getting the RCM study headed in the right direction from the beginning. Now you have a vast library of equipment, potential failures, and mitigation details to draw upon vs. trying to dream these up on your own. Trust me… many the hour can be wasted asking your field team to list out how a pump or motor can fail, what each failure can mean, and how to mitigate against it. It is possible, but the process to get a “final and agreed to,” list is not an easy one. With MAS RS, you and your team can build the elements of the RCM/FMEA together by following its flow vs. typing, arguing, then retyping your interpretation of failures and their mitigations.

Now you are starting with a list that is based upon over 25 years of real industry data collection and experience, now you have something rather objective to start the conversation with. Certainly not all the failure modes may apply to your equipment in its context, but at least you are not starting with a blank slate. Rather than eliminating failures from the list(s) provided by MAS RS, you can simply reduce their probability/criticality to a very low level… making them available in the future if the situation does change!

Out of the box, upon its initial release, MAS RS has over 800 types of equipment, 58000+ failure mechanisms across operating contexts, and 5000+ preventive maintenance tasks. Certainly, a good foundation to begin with.

So, what does MAS RS do for me?

Given its vast library of equipment and related failures, RS begins with an FMEA viewer that enables you to review and select the equipment failures you deem appropriate for your assets in Manage. In a single application, you can select the operating context, perform your failure analyses, determine appropriate mitigation activities, and track how they are implemented in MAS Manage. The effectiveness of the mitigation activity can also be assessed… how effective (or not) the activity is expected to be.

Then the “Composer” function, builds suggested Preventive Maintenance records and Job Plan tasks for you to implement into MAS Manage.

As with all MAS applications, the User… most likely your Reliability Engineer…accesses the apps via a browser connected to your MAS instance.

As a side note, the MAS RS can help you begin to classify your Assets in much the same way a good RCM study does. It makes clear the groupings of Assets, much like the Classification/Attributes feature does.

Getting RS installed

If you have MAS (and the Manage component) deployed and AppPoints in hand, you are entitled to MAS RS via your IBM account. Then your MAS Administrator will deploy the RS add-on and enable the sub-set of Users to it via the RELIABILITYSTRATEGIES Security Group under MAS Manage.

Keep in mind that the MAS RS database/library is hosted by IBM out in the cloud as a service. Your instance of MAS will need to have cloud access and appropriate API Key authentication.

Wrap up

IBM Maximo has always been considered an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) level solution. Now with the advent of IBM MAS, many more related features/functions can be added to the toolbox, not

only from IBM but also other related vendors and solution providers. MAS RS is a clear example of a much needed and solidly related tool that those of us who are looking after asset performance and our strategies for maintenance can easily take advantage of. As this is the first release of this tool, the functionality is basic. As User input is received, IBM will surely add not only further functionality, but also deeper integrations with the other MAS components.

TRM and IDCON have been operating in support of RCM and FMEA studies via our Maximo (and now MAS) implementation expertise as well as our People and Process work across industries. We are uniquely qualified to help you move towards your goals and declare victory sooner than you had originally planned.

Reference Links:

• https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/mas-cd/continuous-delivery?topic=new-in-811
• https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/maximo-manage/continuous-delivery?topic=module-reliability-strategies