The future role of preventative maintenance when integrating reliability centred maintenance II

The future role of preventative maintenance (PM) operations requires upheaval in the way industry perceives the act of successful maintenance. This paper ventures into analysis of the strategic background of preventative maintenance by introducing the reliability centred maintenance (RCM II) methodology (1), as the focus of attention. Currently, maintenance involves seven key areas such as; corrective, time-based, condition based, opportunity-based; combined with faultfinding, design modification, and overhaul. RCM II has been thoroughly analysed with regards to providing an integrated framework for future preventative maintenance operations. The strategies, core principles and processes of RCM II have been reviewed with emphasis on the future. To achieve the required level of maintenance quality, a process of monitoring the plant and equipment is required, and is achieved by conditioning monitoring (CM) via accelerometers, transducers, and computer software. The signals produced are utilised by expert systems. These expert systems require extensive databases from which to acquire decisions, and are achieved by the creation of knowledge based systems. Combining the expert systems with a present and future preventative maintenance framework results in a concept, where RCM II can be integrated to build a preventative maintenance operation system using advanced condition monitoring techniques that interfaces with an expert systems structure. This results in a system whereby a fault can be observed, analysed and diagnoses performed all off-site utilising Internet connection with mainframe software data systems and providing vast knowledge bases for the preventative maintenance operations.