Book Review: Rules of Thumb for Maintenance and Reliability Engineers

[neo]

Rules of Thumb for Maintenance and Reliability Engineers, written by Ricky Smith and R. Keith Mobley, is a practical reference book designed for engineers, technicians, maintenance managers, and reliability professionals who deal with the everyday challenges of keeping industrial assets safe, available, and reliable. First published by Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann in 2007–2008, the book is deliberately different from a conventional theoretical engineering textbook. Instead, it provides practical rules, calculations, tables, charts, checklists, and concise explanations that can be quickly consulted when solving maintenance and reliability problems.

One of the book's greatest strengths is its breadth. It covers the fundamentals of maintenance and reliability before moving into preventive and predictive maintenance, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM), failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), equipment criticality ranking, root-cause failure analysis (RCFA), reliability software, key performance indicators (KPIs), and total productive maintenance. It also addresses practical equipment such as bearings, gears, pumps, compressors, hydraulics, electric motors, seals, and belt and chain drives. This makes the book particularly useful to engineers working in process industries, manufacturing plants, utilities, and other asset-intensive environments.

A particularly valuable feature is the book's emphasis on moving organizations away from purely reactive maintenance. The authors distinguish between reactive and proactive approaches and emphasize that the objective of maintenance is not simply to repair equipment after failure, but to achieve the required reliability at an optimum cost. This philosophy is highly relevant to modern asset-management programs, where organizations increasingly focus on failure prevention, condition monitoring, reliability improvement, and risk-based maintenance rather than simply increasing maintenance activity.

The sections on predictive maintenance are also useful because they introduce techniques such as vibration analysis, thermography, tribology, and ultrasonic inspection. The discussion of reliability processes—including RCM, FMEA, criticality assessment, and RCFA—provides a practical framework for identifying why equipment fails and determining what should be done about it. For a practicing reliability engineer, these topics provide a useful bridge between engineering theory and actual plant decision-making.

However, the book also has limitations. Because it was published around 2007–2008, some technologies, software practices, digital reliability tools, and modern predictive-maintenance techniques have evolved considerably. Consequently, readers should not treat every rule of thumb as an absolute engineering requirement. Manufacturer recommendations, applicable codes and standards, equipment-specific failure data, operating conditions, and formal engineering calculations should take precedence where appropriate.

Overall, Rules of Thumb for Maintenance and Reliability Engineers is an excellent practical reference rather than a book intended to be read from cover to cover. Its greatest value lies in giving engineers quick access to useful information when facing real maintenance and reliability problems. Its combination of practical experience, equipment knowledge, reliability processes, and management principles makes it particularly valuable for engineers developing from maintenance-focused roles toward broader reliability and asset-integrity responsibilities. I would recommend it as a desk reference for maintenance and reliability professionals, with the qualification that its practical guidance should always be validated against current standards, site procedures, and equipment-specific requirements.

[octane]

Is this book useful for us working in oil & gas? specifically talks about issues within our industry? Both static and rotating equipment?

[ben]

Published back in 2007-2008