Hiya John
Ive no doubt that using a practical evaluation methodology to develop or optomise a maintenance program will realise a significant return on your project investment, protracted savings will be realised by the focusing of valuble resources.
There are so many different ways to approach reliablity centered maitenance, my experience and research indicates it is prudent to concentrate on the validation and optimization of existing PM tasks and rely predominently on existing sources of information and the expertise and experience of staff when performing failure evaluation etc.
Im sure youll find this process an eye opener, I know leading lights in ECRI have published papers which conclude the RCM process and implimentaion is often highly beneficial, Id be very interested to know how you get on.
We all strive to ensure that equipment is maintained with due reference to risk, importance, safety, reliability and availability, the writings on the wall, more to do with less to do it with, Im sure the optimization of the number and performance of PM tasks will become the norm rather than the exception.
Cheers
Darren
