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38 NAVY ENGINEERING BULLETIN MARCH 2003
DR ALUN ROBERTS, THE ASSET
PARTNERSHIP
Revolutionising Naval
Maintenance with RCM
Introduction
This article describes the application of Reliability-centred Maintenance (RCM)
to Naval assets and the revolutionary changes being made through its
application.
Over the years, several myths and
misunderstandings have arisen
about RCM: what it is; whether it
consumes too much resource,
whether it can be applied to all
types of naval assets including
structures; whether the ends
justify the means. Following the
recent visit to Australia by
Commander Nigel Morris RN,
Head of the Royal Navy’s Warship
Support Agency RCM Group,
considerable interest has again
been raised within the RAN about
the RCM process and how it can
be applied to review and reduce
burdensome maintenance
workloads. It is apparent that the
RN has made enormous progress
over the past five to six years in
implementing RCM-based
maintenance programmes to the
Hunt Class MCMVs, Type 23
Frigates and other platforms and
that the benefits of RCM no
longer need justification in the
naval context. The RAN (through
ANZAC) and the US Navy’s Naval
Air Warfare Center have also
started using RCM to review
maintenance policies across a
range of systems.
practices been more necessary
than in the aviation industry
during the late 1950s and early
1960s. In this post-war period,
new aircraft types were being
FIGURE 1: THE TRADITIONAL VIEW OF EQUIPMENT FAILURE.
brought into service with new
technologies (greatly increased
numbers of hydraulic, pneumatic,
electro-mechanical and electronic
systems) placing new and
unforeseen demands on
operators and maintainers.
Up to this time aviation
equipment had been much
simpler and less stressed, with
underlying maintenance policy
being based on the belief that
components and equipment
displayed a ‘useful life’ after
for equipment types was believed
to increase around a specific
number of operating periods as
shown in Figure 1.
As the new generation of aircraft
entered service, aviation
accidents associated with
equipment failure were becoming
more frequent to the point at
which the US Federal Aviation
Authority undertook a
fundamental review of aircraft
maintenance and safety. A major
finding was that failure was
considerably more complex than
had previously been thought.
There were in fact not one, but six
patterns governing equipment
failure, as we see in Figure 2.
Against a background of having
to do more with less, RCM offers
a proven and robust means for
the Navy to obtain maintenance
‘value for money’ and, in parallel,
improve operating safety, system
reliability and platform
availability.
The need for change
Nowhere was the need for change
in maintenance thinking and
FIGURE 2: THE SIX FAILURE PATTERNS
which failures would accelerate in
frequency. In response,
maintenance policies were
developed to change or overhaul
items as they approached this
perceived ‘life’. Graphically, the
conditional probability of failure
Recognition of these patterns
heralded a revolution in the world
of aviation maintenance and
equipment design. Patterns A, B
and C supported the existence of
age-related failure, but only in a
relatively small percentage of