A disciplined maintenance strategy that determines which maintenance actions are required for each asset, prioritized by the criticality of failure modes, and schedules them by condition-monitoring data rather than fixed intervals. It carves maintenance as a decision process: (1) identify functions and failure modes per asset, (2) assess consequences of each failure, (3) select condition-based or time-based tasks where justified, and (4) implement continuous monitoring and review. It persists through organizational standards (ISO 13374/17359), maintenance management systems, and the iterative PDCA cycle that keeps the strategy adaptive. [formal: reliability-centered maintenance | substrate: behavior | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
reliability-centered maintenance
A disciplined maintenance strategy that determines which maintenance actions are required for each asset, prioritized by the criticality of failure modes, and schedules them by condition-monitoring data rather than fixed intervals. It carv…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made systematic methodology for determining maintenance requirements based on failure modes, consequences, and criticality analysis. RCM prioritizes maintenance tasks by evaluating what can fail, how it fails, and the impact of each failure — establishing prevention strategies proportional to risk. Developed by Nowlan and Heap for the airline industry, it is a structured practice for optimizing maintenance investment in engineered systems.
Names and aliases
- reliability-centered maintenanceen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cms7wyk72004ph6s8d82lhwqlSERVES →
Reliability-centered maintenance is a systematic methodology for determining what maintenance is required and how to perform it, designed for the sake of achieving and maintaining system reliability. Its entire purpose is to further reliability's operation through structured analysis of failure modes and their consequences. Law 8d: the designed purpose is to serve reliability, not merely to use or contain it.
- cmrrhfq2501ljq89d3w4wt2wzINSTANCE_OF →
Reliability-centered maintenance IS a specific kind of methodology — a systematic approach to determining maintenance needs. A competent speaker calls RCM 'a methodology.' Direction: specific → general. Law 9 satisfied.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 8, 2026, 12:06 AM UTC
- Content hash
- cb988e1b79c04e195cd891006514af6fc5f15e29cb69fcb3d9ea6cb61400ca9c