Forum: LRCM

Thanks Ric, for demanding clarity on this subtle but vital issue in RCM.

The concepts “risk category” and “consequences” are separate ones. Even though they share some common labels, they have different roles in the decision process.

The purpose of the consequences (i.e. Hidden, Safety/health/envir, Operational, Non-operational) is mainly to select a decision logic trajectory in the RCM algorithm.

The purpose of “risk category” is to help determine criticality for purposes of prioritization and for other types of decisions.

Risk categories (called “types of hazards” in Def Stan 00 45):

1. Safety
2. Environmental
3. Operational
4. Cost

Consequences:

1. Hidden
2. Safety/health/environment
3. Operational
4. Non-operational

I was wrong, in this exercise, to try to meld risk categories and consequences into a single notion. We should remove “Hidden” as a risk category in the risk grid. But retain it for the Consequence column on the FMECA for applying to the logic tree. Fortunately, this is easy to do in BI-Cycle.

Murray