The Essentials of Documenting Failure Effects in RCM

The next step in the process is step four, which is Failure Effects. And for each Failure Mode in an RCM analysis we write a Failure Effect and that is a short story of what would happen if we did nothing to predict or prevent the failure Mode. Here's what we include in a Failure Effect: a description of the failure process from the occurrence of the Failure Mode to the Functional Failure, physical evidence that the failure has occurred, how it adversely affects safety, the environment, operational capability, or the mission, specific operating restrictions as a result of the failure, any secondary damage, and what must be done and how long it will take to repair the failure. As mentioned before, we write Failure Effects as if nothing is being done to predict or prevent the Failure Mode and that's what makes Reliability Centered Maintenance a zero-based process. Doing so allows us to use the rest of the RCM process to determine how to manage each Failure Mode.