3. Stages in the development of the RCM maintenance program

3.1 Preamble

The motivations that led Nowlan and Heap to develop the RCM maintenance procedure stem from their assessments of the four objectives that a maintenance program must achieve:

• 1. ensure inherent levels of equipment safety and reliability;

• 2. restore safety and reliability to their inherent levels following the occurrence of a degradation ;

• 3. obtain the information needed to improve the design of assemblies whose inherent reliability has been shown to be inadequate;

• 4. achieve these objectives at minimum overall cost, including maintenance and residual failure costs.

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