Maintenance Acronyms - What are the most used?
12. RCA: Root Cause Analysis
Root cause analysis is the process of analyzing equipment failure events to determine their fundamental causes, which gives maintenance teams a more focused approach to preventing those failures in the future. Various strategies are used, including fault-tree analysis, the 5 Whys method, and fishbone diagrams.
13. FMEA: Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
With FMEA, a maintenance team takes inventory of potential failure modes associated with their equipment and other business processes. The potential severity of those failure modes is analyzed in order to help with maintenance planning.
14. FRACAS: Failure Reporting, Analysis, and Corrective Action
While FMEA involves predicting what might occur with your equipment, FRACAS is the process of finding trends in existing data that you’ve collected in the past. FRACAS entails consistent failure reporting, analysis of the data collected from your reports, and corrective action based on your findings.
15. PMO: Planned Maintenance Optimization
To be truly effective, planned maintenance tasks should be optimized to be as lean as possible. PMO is the process of analyzing existing PMs and cutting/adjusting ineffective or inadequate tasks. Effective PMO helps maintenance teams be more effective and eliminate waste.
16. FM: Facilities Management
Facility management, or FM, is the large-scale management of a company’s physical assets and systems, including buildings, machines, HVAC, and so on. Maintenance is a vital part of FM since it helps deal with the efficiency, compliance, and safety of a facility’s operations.
17. PRV: Plant Replacement Value
PRV is an estimate of how much it would cost to replace all existing assets in a facility while still maintaining the same level of capacity. Maintenance professionals use estimated PRV to determine how much they should be spending on maintenance, which should ideally be around 2% to 3% of the facility’s PRV.
Estimated plant replacement value may also be referred to as replacement asset value (RAV) or estimated replacement value (ERV).
18. OEE: Overall Equipment Effectiveness
OEE is a composite score based on a plant’s availability, operational efficiency, and quality of output. Measures of those three components, represented as percentages, are multiplied together to get a facility’s OEE score, and the score itself is used to measure how well a facility is doing overall in terms of maintenance and process management.
19. MTR: Mean Time to Repair
MTR is the average amount of time it takes to repair a piece of equipment when it fails. This measurement takes into account the time it takes to diagnose a problem, repair it, and get the asset back online.
Mean time to repair is also frequently abbreviated as MTTR.
20. MTBF: Mean Time Between Failures
The average amount of time that passes between failure events for a given asset is represented in the measure of MTBF. MTBF is often used to help calculate how frequently preventive maintenance tasks should be performed, though it shouldn’t be taken as an absolute measurement.
21. MDT: Mean Downtime
MDT is the average amount of time an asset spends out of operation. It includes both scheduled downtime—such as during preventive maintenance or upgrades—and unscheduled downtime from failures and repairs.
22. OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer
Strictly speaking, an OEM is a company that makes parts that are marketed or used by other manufacturers. OEM parts are often used when replacing or retrofitting existing parts used in a facility’s machines, processes, tools, etc.
23. RPN: Risk Priority Number
A risk priority number is a gauge of how much risk a given asset represents. RPNs are commonly calculated by multiplying various ratings together, such as the asset’s criticality, the probability of a given failure mode, and the odds of detecting faults within the asset. Each factor is rated from 1 to 6 (or 1 to 10) and then multiplied together to get an RPN.
Typically, the higher the RPN, the more an asset should be prioritized, though that’s not always the case.
24. LOTO: Lockout-Tagout
LOTO is a maintenance acronym and is the process of shutting off and locking down an asset for repairs or preventive maintenance. LOTO procedures must be followed in order to keep equipment from starting up while someone is working on it, thereby preventing serious accidents.
25. NDT: Nondestructive Testing
NDT is any method used to gauge a component’s properties without causing damage. The sensors used in PdM are a form of nondestructive testing since they evaluate equipment health without harming the equipment itself.
NDT is also called nondestructive evaluation (NDE) or nondestructive inspection (NDI).
26. DGA: Dissolved Gas Analysis
DGA is the analysis of gases present in the insulating oil of transformers. Over time, insulation in transformers breaks down and releases gas into the unit, and that can act as a sign of wear or potential faults. DGA is used as a way to anticipate faults such as overheating or arcing.
27. UT: Ultrasonic Testing
Also called ultrasound analysis (UA), UT is a nondestructive evaluation method that uses a highly sensitive microphone to analyze sound waves coming from an asset. Variations or nuances in the readings may indicate changes in the equipment’s condition.
28. IR: Infrared Radiation
Infrared analysis measures infrared radiation (IR) to map out heat signatures. Applications include analyzing mechanical and electrical processes, gauging the condition of insulation, detecting leaks, and more.
29. VA: Vibration Analysis
VA is a maintenance acronym that uses instrumentation to collect readings on vibrations on a given piece of equipment. Significant changes in the vibration data may indicate shifts in the equipment’s condition. For example, rotating equipment like mixers or turbines often vibrate more when their bearings start to wear out.
30. IoT: Internet of Things
The Internet of Things is a maintenance acronym and is a system composed of various devices connected over a network. For example, in an industrial setting, sensors, computers, and mobile devices will all transmit data to one another, creating an interconnected system.
IIoT refers to the Industrial Internet of Things, which is IoT applied specifically in an industrial context. IIoT typically requires a more robust, reliable system than consumer-level IoT.
This article was updated with more information in May, 2020.
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If you’ve been in the business world long enough, you know what it feels like to swim in alphabet soup. Acronyms are great shortcuts to communicate important concepts, but too many could become overwhelming. If you’re new to the maintenance industry, you can quickly learn industry terms with this list of the top ten most commonly used maintenance acronyms and their definitions.
1. CMMS: Computerized Maintenance Management Systems
A CMMS is a software solution that helps facilities store, organize, and access its maintenance-related data.
2. EAM: Enterprise Asset Management
EAM systems track assets during the entire lifecycle including acquisition, maintenance, and disposal.
3. SCADA: Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
SCADA systems help companies manage plant processes through data systems, graphical user interfaces, and monitoring tools. SCADA as a lever that connects equipment with operators and maintenance personnel.
4. TPM: Total Productive Maintenance
TPM is a maintenance acronym that works to maximize productivity through efficient use of all facilities, space, and assets. TPM requires cooperation from multiple departments throughout a facility.
5. RCM: Reliability-Centered Maintenance
RCM looks at a facility’s required level of maintenance in order to better manage cost, production, and spare parts availability. The end goal is to make maintenance more efficient and effective.
6. RTF: Run-to-Failure
RTF refers to those items that simply need to be replaced when they fail. An example of this is a lightbulb that is replaced after it goes out. Be sure to have new ones on hand to replace the old ones, when needed.
7. PM: Preventive Maintenance
PM is a program designed to perform those tasks that keep assets and machines in good working order. For example, changing air filters in an HVAC system is a PM.
8. PdM: Predictive Maintenance
PdM is a maintenance acronym that uses technology such as sensors to monitor assets or equipment on an ongoing basis for potential problems. For instance, a temperature sensor can alert you as soon as a chiller is out of range, prompting immediate action.
9. CBM: Condition-Based Maintenance
Condition-based maintenance is a maintenance strategy in which you continuously monitor the condition of your equipment and use that data to plan preventive maintenance.
Like PdM, CBM often makes use of sensors, but it differs from predictive maintenance in that it does not use analytics software to automatically predict when faults will occur. Instead, it’s up to the maintenance team to interpret the data and predict which PM tasks are needed.
10. WO: Work Order
WOs are paper or electronic forms that specify what maintenance tasks are required. WOs contain information including the requester, deadline, description, and location of the problem, and needed parts and labor.
11. MRO: Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul
MRO is a maintenance acronym that includes the tests, supplies, and equipment required to keep critical assets up and running. The maintenance acronyms is also used for Maintenance, Repair, and Operations.