Identifying Failure Modes Retrospectively Using Rcm Data

Managers are constantly being told that the quality of data is insufficient for producing reliable results from business models. Reliability analysis is no exception. In this paper, the authors show that it is possible to retrospectively improve the quality of failure histories stored in computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS). A tool was developed to help reliability professionals assign the most appropriate failure mode to a particular work order. Case-based reasoning is used to contextualise the data and reduce the number of possible options to a list of most likely candidates; the case-bank is developed from FMEA based studies such as RCM. Traditionally, CMMS and FMEA systems have rarely been integrated and differences in emphasis, underlying coding structures and information supplied often make this difficult. However, using diesel engine data from HMAS Anzac, it is shown that these issues can be overcome in a sustainable manner. It is also possible to adapt the system for use in real-time failure troubleshooting.