Care Strategies on RSLs

Use Care Strategies to add conditionally applicable Tasks to Tags after you assign an RSL. You can define a Strategy by selecting applicable RSL Tasks and the conditions that must be met. When you assign a Tag to an RSL, the system evaluates the Strategy conditions and presents the applicable Strategies, which you can then apply to the Tag. Applying a Strategy adds its associated RSL Tasks to the Tag.

Creating and Managing Care Strategies in RSLs

To create or edit a Care Strategy, do the following:

1. Open the RCM Maintenance Library Details page.

2. Scroll to the Care strategies section at the bottom of the page.

3. Click Edit to add, remove, or modify Strategies.

4. Create a basic Strategy with no additional options selected. This creates a Main Strategy, for which you define a set of applicable Tasks and a set of conditions.

Note

You can create more than one Main Strategy for an RSL, but you can apply only one Main Strategy per Tag.

In addition to the Main Strategy, there are two other Strategy types:

• Additional Strategy — a supplementary Strategy. If its conditions are met, you can add its applicable Tasks on top of the Tasks from the Main or Mandatory Strategy.

• Mandatory Strategy — a Strategy with no conditions, just a set of applicable Tags. The system always adds its Tasks to the Tag, regardless of the Tag's properties or which other Strategy is selected.

The following icons represent each Strategy type.

Configuring RSL Strategies – Applicable Tasks

After you create a Strategy, the RSL Tasks appear in a list. You can then select the applicable Tasks for the Strategy — these are the Tasks the system adds to an assigned Tag when you apply this Strategy to it.

Note

If you do not define the Strategy correctly, a warning icon appears next to it, explaining how to correct the Care Strategy.

Configuring RSL Strategies – Strategy Conditions

Use the Strategy requirements section to define the conditions a Tag must meet for a Strategy to apply. In this example, this Strategy applies only to "Active" Tags that have either the Location Type "BOILER-FLOC" or the Equipment Group "BOILER".

The AND / OR blocks to the left of the condition statements indicate how these conditions combine: with AND, all conditions must be true; with OR, only one condition needs to be true.

In the next example, this Strategy applies only to "Active" Tags created after 20 Sept 2021, with the Spec "COATING MATL" set to "Polyethylene" and the Spec "TIGHTNESS" set to "TIGHT SHUT OFF". Because all these conditions are part of an AND block, all of them must be true for the system to assign the Strategy.

The list of available condition options is currently fixed, though it can be expanded to cover other conditional requirements. This means you can select the appropriate conditions without needing to know the underlying data storage and entity relationships.

Additional RSL Strategies

To create an Additional Strategy, select the Is Additional checkbox.

The below figure shows an Additional Strategy being configured. The icon on the right of the Strategy name (in this case, “ADDITIONAL STRATEGY 1”) indicates that this is an Additional Strategy.

When you assign a Tag to this RSL and select Main Strategy A or B, the system adds the recommended Task "ALIGNMENT CHECK" on top of the Main Strategy's Tasks, but only if the Tag's Created Date is before 1 Jan 2000.

Mandatory RSL Strategies

For Mandatory Strategies, you only need to select Tasks. Unlike Additional Strategies, Mandatory Strategies do not have any conditions, which means that their Tasks are always added, regardless of the Tag’s properties.

Mandatory Strategies also differ from Additional Strategies in that you can apply them irrespective of whether a Main Strategy is present. If an RSL has an Additional Strategy but no Main Strategy (or no Main Strategy whose conditions are met), the system cannot apply any Strategies to the Tag, even if the Additional Strategy's conditions are met. However, if an RSL has a Mandatory Strategy but no Main Strategy (or no Main Strategy whose conditions are met), the system still applies the Mandatory Strategy automatically. In this case, the system evaluates all Additional Strategies and can add their applicable Tasks to the Tag, depending on the result.

In this way, a Mandatory Strategy serves as a fallback that ensures a Strategy is always selected, regardless of the Tag's properties.

Bulk Assigning Tags to RSL Strategies

You can assign Tags to RSL Strategies in bulk by using the Assign to Strategy bulk action. You can find this option on the FLOC and Equipment Main Screen (Grid List) toolbars, as well as the Analysis Main Screen (Grid List).

A wizard guides you through the bulk assignment steps, described below.

Step 1

First, select a System. If any Tag already has a System selected, the system automatically preselects the same System. If you select more than one Tag, the system preselects the first available System in the list.

If the FLOC/Equipment is already assigned to a System and you select a different System here, a warning icon appears in the "Selected FLOC/EQUIPMENT" grid. The system will not assign this Tag to the new System, though the Tag remains visible.

If the Tag you're assigning is linked to an outdated RSL, a warning message appears, and the system disables the Next button until you upgrade the Tag to a new RSL revision.

Step 2

In this step, you see a list of Tags and applicable Maintenance Libraries. The list shows only Maintenance Libraries that apply to the Tag's Hierarchy Type and that have at least one Strategy whose conditions are met. If no Strategy is applicable (none of the Main Strategies' conditions are met and there is no Mandatory Strategy), the system does not display that RSL.

If there is only one available Maintenance Library to select, the system selects it automatically. Likewise, if there is only one applicable Strategy on that RSL, the system selects that Strategy automatically. Otherwise, for each Tag, you can select one of the available Main Strategies from the applicable Strategies. The system assigns Mandatory Strategies automatically. Once you select a Main or Mandatory Strategy, you can also select multiple Additional Strategies.

You can also choose to select the same Maintenance Library and Strategy for all Tags.

You can expand every Tag row that has a selected RSL to display additional information about the applicable Strategies — the Strategies whose conditions are met, their Strategy types, and their applicable Tasks. Clicking the Maintenance Library name opens a new tab showing the configuration for that RSL.

If an RSL is already applied to the Tag, you can choose only a different Strategy from the same RSL, not another RSL.

You can apply Functions and Function Failures from the RSL as well as from the System. If a value is already applied to the Tag, the system preselects it.

Step 3

In Step 3, you can create and assign a label to the selected Tags. This lets you filter on the selected scope later.

Step 4

After you select a Strategy for at least one Tag, you can move to the last step, where you can preview a summary of the Tags and their selected Strategies. The system lists any blocked Tags/RSLs together with the reason. Click ASSIGN to proceed with the validated Tags/RSLs, or cancel if you want to adjust something first.

Care Strategy Recommendations

Because a Care Strategy can include a random selection of Tasks, some Failure Modes may end up with few or no Tasks selected. Care Strategy RSLs offer more freedom, but this can lead to analyses that have room for improvement from an RCM point of view.

There are a number of recommendations for making better use of Care Strategy RSLs:

• Do Not create a Care Strategy RSL with one strategy, apply it to Tags, then add another strategy, apply it, and repeat.

  • This requires multiple RSL revisions and updates.

  • Instead, create a Care Strategy that’s as complete as possible before you assign it.

• Do Not exclude CMMS types from an RSL in combination with Care Strategies.

  • The variance in Care Strategies and requirements can cause unclear assignments. 

  • Instead, create a separate Care Strategy for particular CMMS types, entering the CMMS types in the requirements.

  • Assign the Care Strategy RSL in logical groups of Location Types, Equipment Groups, and CMMS Types for efficiency.