Technology Lifecycle Management Innovation–Prognostic Health Monitoring on Downhole Drilling Equipment

The simple ‘fix it when its breaks’ approach to maintenance is often referred to as First Generation Maintenance. The approach towards maintenance was changed around the time of World War II, where we transitioned to preventative maintenance due to the requirement of preventing loss of production by machine from downtime. This is known as Second Generation Maintenance. With more complex technology utilization, research by aviation industry has shown that 70%-90% of failure modes are not age-related. For most failure modes the likelihood of occurrence is random and could not be caught by Preventive Maintenance. Later research by the United States Navy and others found very similar results. So, Third Generation Maintenance, Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) was born.