Application of RCM for safety considerations in a steel plant

Any operation or process done on machine or its parts to enhance the efficiency of machine before or after the breakdown is called maintenance. A concern may be said to be successful over the years, when it runs non-interrupted, maintains a smooth production flow consistently and at optimum productivity levels. Plant can achieve productivity up to a satisfactory level by proper maintenance work. The maintenance system may be categorized as either ‘Planned’ or ‘Unplanned‘. The classic maintenance problems in modern industries are insufficient pro-active maintenance, frequent problem repetition, erroneous maintenance work, sound maintenance practices not institutionalized, unnecessary and conservative PM, sketchy rationale for PM actions, lack of traceability/visibility for maintenance program, blind acceptance of OEM inputs, PM variability between like/similar units, paucity of predictive maintenance applications. Hence it was necessary to develop an appropriate methodology to develop strategies and programmatic approach to deal with such problems. The reliability centered maintenance offers the most systematic and efficient process to address an overall programmatic approach to the optimization of plant and equipment maintenance