Over the past few years, we have seen a significant increase in contractors claiming to apply Reliability-Centred Maintenance (RCM) for their clients. Unfortunately, a substantial number of these organisations deliver work of such poor quality that it cannot legitimately be called RCM.

This is not a new phenomenon. A similar situation occurred between 1990 and 2000, when widespread misuse and dilution of RCM led directly to the development of the international RCM standards. Today, we are seeing the same pattern re-emerge.

Real consequences: management responsibility does not disappear

In recent years, managers in Italy and Portugal have faced severe legal consequences following fatal incidents in industrial facilities. These managers had outsourced RCM activities to external contractors who delivered substandard and incorrect RCM work.

Despite having relied on external expertise, the managers themselves were held legally responsible. People died, and the courts ruled that delegation does not remove accountability when high-critical assets are involved.

This is a clear warning to asset owners and senior management worldwide.

Why this matters to you

If your organisation operates high-critical assets, where failures can result in:

  • loss of life,
  • serious environmental damage, or
  • unacceptable financial and operational consequences,

then the following information is highly relevant to you.


If not, we strongly encourage you to share this message with colleagues, peers or organizations that are responsible for operating and maintaining such assets.

Let me introduce myself. I am:

  • an RCM trainer and examiner, and
  • a board member of the SAE G-11M Committee.

The SAE G-11M Committee is responsible for the evaluation and maintenance of the global RCM standards JA1011 and JA1012, published by SAE International (www.sae.org).

These standards represent the highest and only globally leading definition of RCM. Many countries have developed national certification schemes based on them, but JA1011 and JA1012 remain the authoritative source worldwide.

What the RCM standards actually mean

SAE JA1011 defines the minimum requirements that a process must meet in order to be called Reliability-Centred Maintenance.

This includes:

  • mandatory terminology,
  • required analysis sequences,
  • correct interpretation of failure behaviour and consequences, and
  • strict decision logic for task selection.

If any of these elements are changed, simplified or omitted, the process no longer qualifies as RCM, and its quality and reliability can no longer be assured.

The problem in industry today

In highly regulated sectors such as aviation, virtually everything is certified:

  • systems,
  • components,
  • procedures,
  • training and competence.

In most industrial sectors, this level of certification does not exist.

As a result, some consultancy companies:

  • use the term RCM as a marketing label,
  • modify or simplify the methodology,
  • and deliver questionable or unsafe results for high-risk processes.

This is not RCM.

RCM stands for quality, rigour and defensible decision-making.

A global concern

In recent years, so-called “RCM projects” have been completed in regions including:

  • Eastern Europe,
  • parts of Africa,
  • and South America,

often with insufficient quality control and non-compliance with international RCM standards.

In high-critical environments, this creates a real risk of:

  • major accidents,
  • loss of life, and
  • unacceptable economic and societal consequences.

Support for responsible managers

For this reason, we offer several free approaches that enable managers and asset owners to:

  • assess the quality of RCM work delivered by contractors,
  • verify compliance with SAE JA1011 / JA1012, and
  • protect both their organisations and their personal responsibility.

High-critical assets demand high-quality RCM — nothing less.

1. RCM Workgroup

❌ Not acceptable

  • No certified RCM facilitator
  • No formal workgroup
  • Analysis performed by a single individual
  • Analysis based primarily on interviews

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • RCM workgroup managed by a certified RCM facilitator (RCM Level 2)
  • Workgroup members are RCM Level 1 certified

✅ High RCM quality

  • Certified RCM Level 2 facilitator
  • Fully trained RCM Level 1 workgroup
  • Cross-functional representation (operations, maintenance, engineering, HSE)

2. RCM Standards

❌ Not acceptable

  • Not based on SAE JA1011 / JA1012

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Explicitly based on SAE JA1011 / JA1012

✅ High RCM quality

  • Full compliance with SAE JA1011 / JA1012
  • Demonstrable alignment in terminology, sequence and decision logic

3. FMEA / Analysis Structure

❌ Not acceptable

  • Object-based FMEA (asset, asset type, components)
  • Use of FMECA
  • Use of RPN or numerical risk scoring

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • System-based analysis:
    • Functions
    • Functional failures
    • Failure modes
    • Failure effects

✅ High RCM quality

  • Fully function-oriented RCM analysis
  • Strict separation of:
    • failure effects
    • consequences
    • decision logic

4. RCM Step 1 – Operating Context & Functions

❌ Not acceptable

  • Simple text description or missing documentation

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Operating Context documented in accordance with JA1012 §6.1

✅ High RCM quality

Includes, as a minimum:

  • Defined system boundaries
  • Scope and objectives
  • Detailed process description (based on current P&IDs)
  • Protective device matrix:
    • functionality
    • thresholds
    • availability requirements
    • failsafe / BIT
  • Historical failure modes
  • Current operational procedures
  • HSE objectives and procedures
  • History of process modifications

Additionally:

  • Black-box definition
  • Performance standards defined by operations, not suppliers
  • ESCAPES methodology applied
  • All four functional checks documented
  • All five categories of protective functions addressed

5. Functional Failures

❌ Not acceptable

  • Incorrect or incomplete functional failure statements

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Functional failures defined according to JA1012 §7

✅ High RCM quality

  • All failed states identified:
    • total failures
    • partial failures
    • false failures
  • Structured, complete and unambiguous failure statements

6. Failure Modes

❌ Not acceptable

  • Incorrect level of causation
  • Incorrect failure modes
  • Blind use of failure mode databases

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Failure modes defined per JA1012 §8

✅ High RCM quality

  • All reasonably likely failure modes included:
    • historically observed
    • newly identified but credible
    • currently prevented by tasks
  • Correct:
    • causation level
    • root causes
    • failure type classification

7. Failure Effects

❌ Not acceptable

  • Use of RPN or numerical scoring
  • Failure effects mixed with consequences

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Failure effects defined per JA1012 §9

✅ High RCM quality

Documented for each failure mode:

  • P-information
    • potential failures
    • P–F intervals
    • detection methods
  • F-information
    • evidence of failure
    • operational impact
    • HSE impact
    • physical damage
    • recovery actions
  • Failure pattern (Weibull β, η)
  • MTBFM

8. Failure Consequences

❌ Not acceptable

  • Risk calculations
  • No RCM consequence categories

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Consequence classification per JA1012 §10

✅ High RCM quality

Full consequence structure with sub-categories:

  • Hidden
    • Hidden HSE (operational / non-operational)
    • Hidden economic (operational / non-operational)
  • HSE
    • operational
    • non-operational
  • Economic
    • operational
    • non-operational

9. Failure Management Policy Selection

❌ Not acceptable

  • Supplier-driven maintenance
  • Not based on operating context
  • Incorrect or inconsistent data usage

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Policy selection per JA1012 §11

✅ High RCM quality

  • Tasks based on validated data:
    • On-condition (P and P–F)
    • Scheduled restoration / replacement
      • failure patterns
      • useful life or Weibull β, η
    • Failure-finding (availability, MTBFM)
    • Run-to-failure
    • Redesign (mandatory or desirable)
  • Every task is:
    • technically feasible
    • worth doing
  • Cost and risk justification documented

10. Scheduled Tasks & Intervals

❌ Not acceptable

  • Incorrect interpretation of P–F, life or useful life

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Scheduled tasks per JA1012 §13

✅ High RCM quality

  • Consistent Net P–F intervals
  • Correct task selection criteria
  • Correct interval calculations
  • Correct use of:
    • safe-life
    • economic-life limits
  • Correct FFI calculations:
    • MTIVE, MTED, MMF, UTIVE
    • all 9 FFI formulas
    • probability of failure on demand (p)
  • Correct interpretation of failsafe and BIT

11. Living RCM Programme

⚠️ Minimal acceptable

  • Programme update per JA1012 §16

✅ High RCM quality

  • Explicit strategy for continuous optimisation
  • Feedback loops based on observed failure behaviour
  • Logical robustness per JA1012 §17

One-line conclusion (website-ready)

High-quality RCM is defined by strict compliance with SAE JA1011/JA1012 and delivers structured, rigorous and defensible maintenance decisions.