For more than 100 years, the idea of what constituted world-class maintenance has evolved. In the early 20th century, maintenance centered around fixing something when it broke. After World War II, as refinements were added to equipment design, maintenance shifted to a scheduled program of predictive upkeep. During the early ’60s, this school of maintenance thought gave rise to scheduled tear-downs and rebuilds. In the ’80s as technology advanced, industrial systems grew more complex, and maintenance programs began to incorporate predictive elements to combat equipment downtime and improve reliability.

KEY ELEMENTS OF RCM

The turn of the 21st century ...