RCM was designed to balance the costs and benefits, to
obtain tbe most cost-effective PM program. To achieve this,
the desired system performance standards have to be specified.
PM will not prevent all failures, and therefore the
potential consequences of each failure must be identified
and the likelihood of failure must be known. PM tasks are
chosen to address each failure by using a set of applicability
and effectiveness criteria. To be effective, a PM task must
provide a reduced expected loss related to personnel
injuries, environmental damage, production loss, and/or
material damage.