Reality

Centered

Maintenance

RCM
Emiro Vásquez
 DEDICATION
To my mother who gave everything for her
children (I love you-RIP) and my father for all that
patience and support in my growth. To my two
sons Emiro José Manuel and Jesús David who
are far away, but present and are my life project.
To my sisters and brother, sister-in-law and
brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews. To Sallik
and Thays for their great contribution in training
my children. To my sister Tamara for those
energies in caring for the elderly at this stage of
their lives.

GRATEFULLNESS
To my sisters Carmita and Ninoska who
contributed to the revision of the book in Spanish
and to my brother-in-law Daniel Shook for the
revision of my book in English. To Edysmar who
has helped and enthused me in starting my
venture. The Covid19, even with negative
consequences, has allowed me to consolidate my
knowledge, experience and able to give value,
enthusiasm and motivate me to elaborate this
book. To my friends, supporters, followers and
detractors on social networks, who contributed to
the strengthening of my knowledge.
And grateful to God and the Virgin of the Valley
for giving me the wisdom to share this book.
INDEX
 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

III. The Life Cycle of the Physical

Asset
In the following image we show the life cycle of
the physical asset.

As future professionals, it is necessary to know

how the different phases of physical assets
develop in any industry. It is noteworthy that
once they enter the labor market, it is likely that
they will be working in a company that has
responsibility for one or more stages of these
physical assets. In general, there are companies
in charge of Engineering, Procurement and
Construction, whose contract is called EPC, this
same company performs the Pre-commissioning,
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 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

others may carry out the Commissioning and

Start-Up, while to Operate and Maintain can be
carried out by the company that owns the assets
(Companies producing Energy, Food, etc.) or by
a main supplier that is in charge of said
activities. In itself, operations and maintenance
is the longest phase in the life cycle of the
physical asset and there may be many
approaches. For example, operating and
maintaining can be done by the same company
or sometimes you choose to outsource the
maintenance be 100% or just a part.
For Renew processes, for example turnaround, it
is normal for it to be carried out by the same
company that is performing the maintenance.
However, even when the turnaround is its total
responsibility, it relies on third parties to provide
resources, be it of personnel or equipment,
among others, necessary for this execution. I will
provide more details later.
Regarding the Decommissioning process, the
need arises from the same company that
operates and maintains, although the one in
charge of coordinating this is the finance
department of the same company with the
participation of operations, maintenance,
engineering and others. In some cases, they are
supported by external companies with financial
strengths to complete the decommissioning of
physical assets.
I clarify that most of the anecdotes in this book
are related to oil and gas installations,
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 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

specifically in refineries and crude upgraders,

where I have had more experience.
Next, we will detail each stage of this life cycle of
the physical asset, for which I am supported on
the PDVSA Standards:
-Conceptualization: In the first place, we must
conceptualize the project or the physical asset
system as we want to call it. In this first stage,
we identify the technical-economic viability of it
and in turn set the standard for both basic
engineering and detailed engineering. The
technology, key design parameters of plants and
major equipment are also defined.
A list of preliminary equipment is generated,
block diagrams, the computerized systems to be
used are defined, in the case of maintenance we
would be talking about a CMMS (Computerized
Maintenance Management System).
The execution of the HAZOP (Hazard and
Operability Study) is also developed, as well as
determine the possible OEE (Overall Equipment
Effectiveness) and RAM (Reliability Availability
Maintainability) studies.
The development of all these studies is not
contemplated in this book, but it should be noted
that they are calculations based on statistics, on
data from other plants, OREDA data manual
(Offshore and Onshore Reliability Data). It is also
prepared globally, at a plant level and not at the
equipment detail level, which will allow them to
project a probabilistic value of its operability.
In this conceptualization stage, the best options
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 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

are prepared, evaluated and selected,

establishing costs, execution time, among
others. Once this stage is completed, a Class IV
cost estimate must be obtained for the execution
of this project.
-Basic Engineering: In this second stage, we
define the general guidelines and basic ideas of
the project. For example, physical location,
critical equipment, process and major equipment
design specifications, floor or plot plans, process
flow diagrams (PFD), piping and instrument
diagrams (P&ID), one-line diagrams, and some
other flat deliverables. None of these are ready
for construction.
In addition, we must develop a general
description of the main physical assets. For
example, in the case of a pump we can have its
discharge pressure and flow defined in this stage,
but in the next stage it is where will fully specify
all its characteristics and dimensions.
In this phase with approximately 60% progress,
a Class III project cost estimate must be
established, and at 100% progress a Class II cost
estimate must be established.
-Detail Engineering: At this stage we have all
the details, including detailed plans and
specifications, metric computations and memory
of calculations, specifications and list of
materials and equipment, package and strategies
for contracting the construction, requirements
and purchase orders of all materials, logistics
and control plans.
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As its name indicates, in this phase the detail of

what is going to be built is shown and with all
this information a Class I cost estimate is
generated, and from this moment on,
maintenance will have a more active
participation.
-Procure: At this stage it is ensured that the
purchase of materials and equipment are made
in accordance with the approved supplier lists
and with the specifications in the requisitions. It
is where purchase orders are placed,
management of quotation processes,
presentation of these to the respective
contracting commissions and analysis of offers.
Compliance with the delivery dates of equipment
and materials, evaluation of the manufacture of
equipment, control the traffic of materials and
equipment through customs and carry out the
corresponding procedures for their
nationalization, store equipment and materials
for the project, control the materials, in order to
ensure their timely availability and carry out the
reconciliation of materials once the construction
is completed.
Tracking the manufacturer of a purchase order
with a specific delivery date is vital to meeting
execution goals on time. It includes phone calls,
correspondence, personal visits and a written
reports at least monthly. The personal visit for
the critical lines is important to corroborate the
written report.
Inspection related to the procurement process is
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a technical function and requires visits by

trained personnel to the manufacturer's
workshops, be they engineers or experienced
technicians. This must be specified on the
purchase order. The manufacturer must notify
the project management in advance, so that it
can send its inspectors in a timely manner.
This inspection includes, certified chemical
analysis of the steel or other material, physical
properties of order-specific materials, including
special metallurgical tests, inspection for defects
in metals or other materials of construction:
visual, magnetic particles, x-rays, ultrasound,
verification of dimensions, tolerances, location of
connections, manufacturing techniques such as
forging, pressing, rolling, welding, polishing, etc.
and pressure testing and certification by a
qualified inspector to certify compliance with
applicable codes.
-Construction: It is the fifth stage, which
includes a number of activities that will depend
on the size of the work. It is simply to translate
what is in the plans into reality, for which,
execution, manufacturing, installation,
inspection plans must be considered, including
health, safety and environment plans.
It is possible that at this stage they should make
adjustments and ignore what is indicated on the
plans, since the reality may be different. There
are many cases that during construction
modifications are made to the plans, so that
there are no complications a posteriori during
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operations and maintenance.

-Precommissioning: It is the phase where the
checklist, loop tests, tightness tests, among
others, are carried out. This activity is normally
included in an EPC (Engineering, Procurement
and Construction) contract.
-Commissioning: Once the mechanical
completion during construction is complete, this
stage begins and the preparation and testing for
the plant commissioning is carried out,
completing the checklist of the pre-
commissioning phase.
It is important to proceed to clear the list of
pending items, physical and meticulous
verification of the area, comparing flow diagrams
and mechanical drawings with what is installed
and verify operational connections for start, stop,
normal and emergency operation, checking that
they have blockages, purges, corresponding
vents and drains.
Also verify line purging and placement of blinds
(pancakes) in equipment not subject to
hydrostatic tests (compressors, pumps, safety
valves, others) and finally the preparation of the
blind list.
-Start-Up: In this stage, the stable operation of
the plant is achieved for a minimum time of 24
hours, culminating the initial operation period
and after starting the normal operation phase.
Testing the performance of the plant's equipment
and systems and maintaining stable operational
continuity, to analyze performance now occurs.
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We also proceed to verify the quality of the final

products. Representatives of the equipment
manufacturers to witness the initial operation of
the equipment are present, for which it is
necessary to have experienced and trained
operators at startup and document all failures in
case they occur, being invaluable information for
operating and keep.
-Operate & Maintain: This is the longest phase
of the asset and therefore is where the mission of
a maintenance organization and its different
strategies to ensure the operational continuity of
physical assets is centered. This stage will be
detailed later.
-Renew: This phase is the one in which the asset
is re-powered, based on major improvements and
maintenance. It is normally reflected in a
turnaround, the objective of which is to bring the
plant to its original conditions.
-Decommissioning: Finally, there is the phase
of decommissioning of the physical asset, a stage
that is generated due to the fact that its
maintenance costs are very high, or because its
spare parts cannot be located since it may be
obsolete equipment, among others.
In the following sections we will detail
maintenance management in the different
phases of the physical asset life cycle, and where
my following phrase fits well:
A Reliable Human Asset in Maintenance,
makes Physical Asset Reliable.

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IV. Maintenance Management

within the Physical Asset
Acquisition stage
In this section, it is up to us to define the
acquisition stage. Like all the phases of the
physical asset life cycle, before operating and
maintaining, we are going to address
maintenance management during the
engineering, procure, construction, pre-
commissioning, commissioning and start-up.
The following image seeks to show the battery
limit that may exist between the Project
Management and the General Management,
which later, will be in charge of operations,
maintenance, and other departments that
interrelated with the production process of that
future plant that would be being built.

It is shown that the conceptualization, basic and

detailed engineering plus the procurement,
construction and pre-commissioning processes
are the responsibility of the Project Management.
A special case is the Commissioning
Management which during the acquisition
process will depend on the Management of
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Project, but once the start-up process begins and

the plant will be operated and maintained later,
it would depend on the General Management.
We know that the commissioning of a plant is an
activity after construction and prior to both start-
up and operating & maintaining the plant. Now,
who should be the Commissioning Manager? In
my opinion, it should be the future Operations
Manager or the future Maintenance Manager of
that plant. I would lean towards the
Maintenance Manager because most of the
startup activities are inspections and equipment
testing and these are related to future execution
by maintenance personnel.
At this acquisition stage is where any deviation
that could affect future operations and
maintenance can be corrected in time. It is for
this reason that maintenance management must
start from the conceptualization of the asset
and/or asset system.
The Commissioning Management must cover
activities both as responsible or only
participation of: maintenance / operations
manual; maintenance strategies; taxonomy;
CMMS with maintenance plans and spare parts
with maximum and minimum (2 years of
operation and long delivery time, that is, Capital
Spare); HAZOP; FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect
Analysis); organization chart and infrastructure
for execution, maintainability; reliability and
availability; plans based on the RCM (Reliability
Centered Maintenance) methodology, and
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maintenance procedures, facilities, accessibility,

infrastructure for dismantling, transport and
repair, among others.
Additionally, it will be responsible for receiving
the witness from the Project once the Mechanical
Completion has been completed to proceed with
the preparation and tests for the commissioning.
It is noted that the RCM methodology, mentioned
above, even when it was developed in the aviation
industry during the 1960's and 1970's, and
documented in detail in 1978 by Ing. Howard
Heap and Stanley Nowlan of United Airlines for
the defense department from the USA, we in
Venezuela began to implement it in the 90's with
the support of the book Reliability Centered
Maintenance by John Moubray. In my opinion, it
is here when at the organizational level they
made a mistake, by dismembering the
maintenance organization from the
responsibility of reliability, creating a new
organization for reliability, ideally having
strengthened the maintenance department with
the attribute of reliability. The maintainer will
work under this reliability criterion.
This situation, sometime later, was the cause
that the reliability personnel entrenched
themselves in office tasks and that the
maintainer worked mainly in corrective and
reactive execution, generating a distance
between maintenance and reliability.
In summary, the Reliability Centered
Maintenance methodology is a technique whose
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main purpose is to develop a maintenance plan

in an industrial facility.
RCM covers, in a general way, how to define a
priority level for critical equipment, preventing
them from reaching the point of failure
(preventive maintenance), and at the same time
leaving those less critical for the application of
corrective maintenance and Failure Mode and
Effect Analysis (FMEA), which is considered a
fundamental tool when developing the RCM
methodology of identifying, evaluating and
preventing possible failures.
It is no secret to anyone that little by little the
development of maintenance plans through this
methodology has tended to disappear since
maintenance is more governed by inspection and
predictive analysis under continuous
monitoring. In other words, preventive execution
would mainly depend on the technical
recommendation (prescription) generated by the
predictive analysis.
Continuing with the responsibilities of this
Commissioning Manager, he should not work
alone, and for that it is very important to have
the future Head of Planning by his side. his right
hand and brain of the Maintenance
Organization. Both must be aligned and
therefore be handling all the necessary
information that they will later require during
operation and maintenance.
In short, this Commissioning Management as the
project progresses, gradually grows its
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organizational structure both in terms of

personnel, infrastructure and responsibilities,
until it becomes a Maintenance organization.
In accordance with the Standard EN16646
Maintenance in the Management of Physical
Assets, much of the information that the future
Maintenance Manager, Head of Planning and
other professionals in the maintenance area
must handle during this acquisition stage, and
which will be used subsequently are the
following:
1. The taxonomic structure of physical assets.
This is very important information since this is
required to be able to capture all the information
related to these assets, in computerized systems
that are related both to asset management (EAM:
Enterprise Asset Management), and to
maintenance management already mentioned
above (CMMS: Computerized Maintenance
Management System).
In short, a taxonomic structure of assets is the
fundamental basis for executing maintenance
planning in the operate and maintain phase, but
it must be defined in the project stage. A fairly
complete model of the taxonomic structure is
shown in the following image.

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Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

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 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

And the image above shows an example, based

on my experience in the Venezuelan oil and gas
industry and structured in a simple way, focused
on the fact that the installation is a Refinery, the
Plant is the Steam Generation Plant with the
System of Boilers, the Equipment Unit being
Boiler 1, Sub Equipment Unit a Pump and the
Parts in this case Bearings.
Once the operational context and the hierarchy
of assets by levels of criticality have been
established, they must be configured; for
example, in the CMMS, for which the following
aspects must be taken into account:
o Verify the existing data in the CMMS
through the recurrent study of the
identified technical locations.
o Configure the facilities, systems or
subsystems consecutively depending on
the operational context.
o Ensure that the teams are associated to
the levels of the technical locations,
depending on the operational context.
o Define the assets avoiding as much as
possible the use of abbreviations,
symbologies, acronyms, among others,
and make an explicit description of them
(technical locations, equipment,
components and bills of materials)
according to the number of pre-configured
characters in the CMMS..
o Configure the hierarchy of assets by
criticality analysis.
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o Assign the taxonomic classification for

technical locations.
o Assign the taxonomic classification for
teams.
o Define the technical locations and
equipment with the required data.
This hierarchy of physical assets facilitates the
location of records and technical and financial
data from higher to lower levels or vice versa. It
also provides an adequate framework for the
company to structure the data in a CMMS and
facilitates the classification of its equipment.
The taxonomy for physical assets leads to a
controlled administration of preventive,
corrective, improvement or replacement actions
during the life cycle, in addition, it generates
early contributions for the management of
maintenance, for the preparation of criticality
analyzes and plans of maintenance.
Finally, the taxonomic structure provides
information to make improvements in the
formulation, approval, execution,
administration, control and review of asset
maintenance budgets, which must be considered
to establish maintenance plans, according to the
policy and strategy of maintenance.
2. The estimated cost of each intervention is used
especially to make decisions between replace or
repair, and determine the spare parts to
purchase whose cost could also be used to
estimate the expected maintenance costs.
3. The characteristics of the assets, including
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plans with which information will allow us to

determine the different failure modes and their
possible maintenance execution.
4. In addition, as maintainers, we will also need
information related to functional analysis,
operating conditions, expected modes of
operation, as well as environmental conditions
and the expected useful life of the assets, which
represents an important piece of information to
determine the maintenance plans.
5. Risk analysis and reliability characteristics
and especially the availability of the asset
system, are studies that serve as the basis for
planning maintenance and taking safety levels
into account.
In this way, maintenance with the products
listed above during this acquisition stage, both
as responsible and/or as a participant, their
actions can be framed in the following activities:
-Develop Maintenance strategies based on the
SBP (Strategic Business Plan) and SAMP
(Strategic Asset Management Plan).
-Determine the availability of tools,
administrative infrastructure and personnel.
-Establish the required levels of Reliability and
Maintainability.
-Determine the infrastructure for the execution
of maintenance.
-Establish restoration times and logistics times.
-Estimate maintenance costs.
-Establish strategies to predict and prevent
failures, through the routing of predictive
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inspections and preventive maintenance plans.

-Determine the ability to detect breakdowns with
early detection devices.
-Evaluate the existence of facilities to make
adjustments and cleaning easily.
-To ensure easy accessibility to the components
for maintenance.
-Make it simple to identify and locate the assets
in the field.
-Have available the analysis of the optimal point
of equilibrium between the price of a new asset
and the cost of repair.
-Provide analysis of interchangeability of assets
and components.
-Have strategies to achieve standardization to
build and / or manufacture assets and / or spare
parts.
-Evaluate modularity for quick component
replacement.
-Seeking to achieve redundancy of assets.
-Determine the maximum time limits before and
after repairing.
-Have the necessary information for the
acquisition of any asset.
-Have methodologies to assess the risk of
obsolescence.
-Elaborate maintenance tasks.
-Have information on the impact of asset
solutions on the life cycle costs of the asset
system.
In summary, the maintenance organization,
through the participation and responsibility of
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the Commissioning Manager, would be able to

establish what the presence of maintenance
means from the project stage, guaranteeing the
highest reliability of physical assets from their
engineering, construction, installation and start
up.
It is noteworthy that during the commissioning
itself, future operators and maintainers of the
plant must already be present. They are those
who, in line with project personnel, will
participate in the plant start-up stage as
indicated verifying operational connections of
start, stop, normal and emergency operation,
verifying that they have the corresponding
blockages, purges, vents and drains, among
others.
In addition to the aforementioned, at this stage,
together with the Commissioning Manager, the
future Head of Planning will be working, among
whose activities and responsibilities would have
to be uploading information to the CMMS.
It is very important, first, the CMMS platform
(Computerized Maintenance Management
System) that is going to be used must be defined,
being recommended that it be friendly, practical
and simple, and that it be designed based on the
true needs, in case it is new.
Among the responsibilities and participation of
the future Head of Planning, is the creation of the
taxonomic structures explained above, as well as
defining the spare parts of 2 years of operation,
which are those of normal consumption used
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 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

during preventive / corrective maintenance and

belong to the spending budget.
In the case of long delivery time spare parts
(Capital Spare), they are used for major
maintenance (Overhaul) and plant shutdowns,
which are normally established to bring the asset
back to its original operation and their high value
are charged to the investment budget.
Another activity on the part of the future Head of
Planning, supported by the manufacturers'
recommendation, Reliability Centered
Maintenance (RCM) and Risk Based Inspection
(RBI) studies is to determine preventive
maintenance plans and the routing of predictive
inspection.
We must be clear that the spare parts are
determined as a maximum and minimum that
should be in stock in order to minimize delays in
the execution of maintenance.
Once the CMMS is defined together with
everything proposed, all the information is
loaded into the CMMS, including the taxonomic
structure, catalog the spare parts, maximum and
minimum, maintenance plans with their
respective man-hours, associated spare parts,
equipment, among others.
With this information, the entire maintenance
management process will be executed in the
following phases of operating and maintaining,
renovation and disincorporation, which will be
handled in a large percentage by the
maintenance brain group, which is maintenance
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 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

planning.
It is very important to highlight that at this stage,
both planning, procurement, and project
personnel must do analysis in order to achieve
standardization of spare parts, mainly in cases
when the assets to be acquired will be installed
in existing infrastructures or they will have an
interrelation with them, thus avoiding a high
diversity of spare parts in warehouses and
minimizing high inventories.
The aforementioned, validates the importance
that maintenance participation should have
during this acquisition stage, being a great
contribution that would be made in the future
operations and maintenance of these assets,
being able to detect any abnormality early.
In this regard, I would like to mention that
between 2003-2004 I was in charge of the
electricity commissioning of the expansion of the
Puerto La Cruz Refinery (Valcor) in Venezuela,
and together with 5 other electricians we began
to get involved, almost completing the
construction of this plant, however we were able
to detect several abnormalities.
Among some of the abnormalities, it was that in
order to disassemble an engine with its pump
weighing approximately 2 tons, at least one crane
of more than 160 tons was going to be required,
which was not because of the weight but because
of the reach of the crane, you can imagine the
cost of renting a crane of this type just to
dismantle that motor-pump assembly.
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 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

Therefore, before the delivery of the plant and in

conjunction with the construction personnel,
facilities were created so that this disassembly
will be carried out with Crane Cranes of at least
5 tons.
But today we have computational platforms that,
through augmented reality, from the engineering
process you can virtually walk around the plant
and simulate events, and that can determine
abnormalities in time, such as this example
mentioned.
I continue to highlight the importance of
maintenance from the design and I bring as an
anecdote the negative effects that an error could
generate for the future operations and
maintenance of these facilities.
In approximately 1995, acting as Maintenance
Supervisor of Gas Compressor Turbines in San
Tome, Venezuela, Project Management handed
us a gas turbocharger plant at the Guico plant.
Six months after being operational and based on
the 4000-hour maintenance plan, we executed
this preventive maintenance and among several
activities that were contemplated, was that of
aligning the turbine gas producer with respect to
the gearbox and the centrifugal compressors
with respect to the gearbox, detecting that
everything was within normal parameters.
A similar turbocharger is shown in the image
below.

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 Reality Centered Maintenance (RCM)

During those two days that maintenance lasted,

it was the rainy season and once this
turbocharger started, the vibration system
suddenly stopped the equipment due to high
vibration and this became repetitive in the
following days.
We opted to check the alignment again, we
moved the turbine, compressors, pipeline and
the vibration was still continuing.
They were almost 3 continuous days without
sleep looking for the solution to the problem,
until we came to the conclusion that there was a
bad design since it was detected that the
electrical power (AC) groundings had connected
it to the electronic system ground
instrumentation and also the grounding of the
vibration system (DC).
Since it had rained, the parasitic currents
produced by lightning effects, among others,
affected the vibration system giving false signals
and therefore stopped the equipment. As a result
of remedying this, which meant a great deal, in
the end maintenance coexisted with the problem
and every time it rained we opted to force the

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signals to avoid stoppages without justification.

In reality, there could be many reasons why a
bad design and / or construction would be
incurred, be it due to technical ignorance or
rushing the delivery time of the work. But one of
the ones that I highlight the most is to want to
save a budget on the design and construction
and that many times influences high
maintenance costs since we have to choose to
redesign to normalize those costs.
There will be some people who during the
operation and maintenance phase, think that
with a redesign they solve this design error, but
other times it is necessary to live with this error.
Implementing this new design would, for
example, merit investing a lot of money or it
means affecting the production due to having the
plant stopped for a long time, among other
scenarios.
In this sense, it is good to know that as
maintenance is the last link in the chain, any
deviation introduced by the maintainer would be
palpable in affecting the productivity of the
corporation, the consequence of which could
simply be reflected in layoffs or replacement of
personnel.
Meanwhile, in the case of any bad design, the
maintainer would be correcting the problem and
many times coexisting with this abnormality by
means of palliative methodologies also called hot
water cloths, and for this reason, I am convinced
that the engineering staff will continue working
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on other projects.
Consistent with this, my phrase:
For a Design Mistake, there will always be a
Maintainer correcting it.

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