With the growing intensity of international competition, the demand for long-term operation of petrochemical plants in China has become increasingly urgent. This places higher expectations on enterprise equipment management, requiring more efficient and effective maintenance strategies.
Traditional maintenance approaches have evolved over time, including reactive, scheduled, preventive, and proactive maintenance. These methods have contributed to reducing equipment failures and lowering maintenance costs. However, they often rely on past experience and conservative safety assumptions, without fully integrating economic considerations, safety, and potential failure risks. As a result, inspection and maintenance activities may not align with the actual risk levels of the equipment, leading to inefficient use of resources, unnecessary inspections, and both over-maintenance and under-maintenance. This lack of precision can result in high costs and ineffective strategies based mainly on subjective judgment.
To address these challenges, Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) has emerged as a more advanced approach. Originating in the U.S. in the 1960s, particularly through Boeing's research on equipment reliability, RCM has developed into a mature methodology by the 1990s. It is especially suitable for the petrochemical industry, combining risk assessment, reliability analysis, and systematic evaluation of failure modes and consequences. By quantifying the risk associated with each failure mode, RCM helps identify the root causes and inherent dangers within an installation, enabling the development of targeted maintenance strategies that reduce risks effectively.
This method has been successfully implemented in major international oil companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, and it is also referenced in the European Union’s RIMAP Standards of Work Manual.
In China, RCM has been applied in the ethylene cracking unit at Maoming Petrochemical Company, part of Sinopec. The project was carried out jointly by Hefei General Machinery Research Institute (GMRI) and Det Norske Veritas (DNV). The study covered all process systems, including compressors, pumps, turbines, towers, reactors, heat exchangers, and safety devices. Based on failure history, degradation mechanisms, and design data, the team evaluated the risk level of each piece of equipment, distinguishing between high-risk and low-risk components.
The results showed that 7.6% of the equipment was classified as high-risk, totaling 22 units, while 48.6% were medium-risk, and 43.8% were low-risk. The analysis focused on equipment where failure could lead to significant safety or environmental impacts, production disruptions, or high maintenance costs. Further analysis of failure modes helped refine maintenance strategies to address specific risks effectively.
RCM starts by defining the function of each asset, analyzing failure modes and their effects, and determining the risk associated with each functional failure. Key factors considered include failure probability, safety and environmental impact, production disruption, and maintenance cost. A risk matrix was used to categorize risks into five levels, based on the likelihood and consequences of failure.
In this project, 1,765 failure modes were analyzed, with 1,099 being non-functional and 666 being functional. Of the functional ones, 14 were high-risk, 321 were medium-risk, and 331 were low-risk. Based on this, 44 types of maintenance tasks were defined, including condition-based maintenance, time-based maintenance, functional testing, corrective actions, operator inspections, and design changes.
In conclusion, the RCM analysis provided a comprehensive and systematic assessment of the ethylene cracker, helping to identify high-risk areas and develop targeted maintenance strategies. This improved equipment safety, reliability, and long-term operational efficiency. It also helped avoid over-maintenance by identifying 80% of low-risk items, offering a solid basis for budgeting and resource allocation. Overall, RCM enhanced the systematic approach to equipment maintenance, promoting better tracking, updating, and knowledge sharing across the organization.
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