KDR Provides Assistance to the Rail Industry

KDR has been working closely with the Australian and South African Rail Industry for some time to develop software solutions which assist in the management of maintenance functions and safe operation of both infrastructure and rolling stock plant and equipment.

Safety in the Rail Industry

KDR Creative Software is an Australian software development house, providing products to prestigious Companies through on the World. It is our view that proper management of the maintenance function is the single most important contributor to the safe operation of facilities.

FMMS embodies several unique functions that have become attractive to rail operators. These functions address safety issues and additionally provide financial benefit to the operators of railway business. We believe we are well credentialed to do this, after working for over 10 years in collaboration with a number of railway industry specialists, including AN, MetroRail, TasRail and QR.

It is an unfortunate that most maintenance software systems rarely meets the business rules and requirements for a quality maintenance operation. The simple reason is they fail to address the maintenance function in sufficient detail to provide worth to the user. Yes, they describe equipment structures, and they plan and schedule work, but this is the superficial function of maintenance software. Maintenance Management by its very nature deals with complexity and detail and it is in the area of detail that most software offerings fail to perform. This is the area for specialists and to-date such specialty has not been incorporated into the large monolithic systems.

KDR offers a cost effective alternative. Our alternative is to front-end and complement an installed ERP. We provide the necessary information for corporate reporting via seamless real time interfaces, but more importantly meet the operational requirements of the maintenance department and capture the detailed data necessary for safe operation and effective decision making by maintenance personnel.

Discussed below are a number of detailed capabilities within the FMMS product that address many of the safety issues faced by railway operators today.

ROLLING STOCK

1. Interface to ERP provides shop floor details and top end reporting.

A high profile Australian Company interested in maintaining their assets made up of more than 13,000 pieces of rolling stock and locos selected KDR to provide a complementary, front-end software product that would provide more detailed information and user-friendlier interface for their maintenance personnel than the currently installed ERP System. Their requirement was to match the software with their defined business processes at the workface. FMMS was selected as that complementary product, and a seamless real-time interface was created to transfer data between the two products enabling maintenance personnel to seek detailed information at the shop floor level whilst providing management with summary reporting for Corporate Management requirements.

2. Bar-coding Eliminates Materials Losses and Enhances Accuracy of Reporting

The FMMS bar-coding functionality provides Rolling stock maintainers with the ability to manage uncontrolled, unmanned materials stores. Maintenance workers are provided with an easy to use, wireless, bar-code based stores issuing system, enhancing materials tracking and thereby eliminating materials losses.

3. Advanced Geographical Planning Results in Planning Efficiencies.

The dilemma faced by any company with assets that are ‘mobile’, is how to effectively maintain such assets over multiple geographically dispersed workshops. In the case of KDR’s client 23 workshops were spread over 30,000 sq miles. Advanced Planning techniques in FMMS and an interface to Asset Location Software enables a planner to predict which assets require maintenance and where the asset will be located when the maintenance falls due, thus gaining major planning efficiencies in respect of labour and materials forecasting.

4. Addressing the Safety Issues

Modifications to Assets for test purposes can lead to safety issues should the maintainer be unaware of the modification. The Facility Alert functionality incorporated into FMMS notifies the maintainer at the time he raises a Job on an Asset of any modification previously applied to the asset.

5. Bulk Application of Jobs to Multiple Facilities

As the name describes, FMMS is currently being enhanced to enable application of one Job to multiple Facilities. For example, should testing of a new design brake pad be successful and an operator wants the new break pads to be installed on all existing rolling stock of a particular class, a single job can be raised and deployed to all such machines.

6. Consistent Work Practice and Reduced Training Overhead

A consistent approach to executing planned and unplanned work has been adopted. All Planned Job Tickets are identified via a system allocated, unique bar-code number, which is referred to electronically in respect of facility number, employee number and materials identification via the use of bar-code scanners. A consistent approach is adopted for Unplanned Jobs, whereby a unique bar-code number identifies a pre-printed Job Ticket. This number is used to initiated and track such jobs and entered ‘after the fact’ into the maintenance software. This has resulted in labour efficiencies and reduced training requirements due to consistency of work practice.

7. Fleet Planning Tool

Existing FMMS Planning functions are to be enhanced to allow the Planner to plan maintenance by Wagon or Loco ‘Class’. Such changes allow the Planner to forecast materials and resource usage by Machine Class.

INFRASTRUCTURE

8. Linear Asset Identification and Maintenance Made Easy

KDR have solved the major problem of asset identification, when related to maintaining linear assets for the assignment, planning and management of work. By its very nature linear assets are difficult to define in maintenance terms. FMMS solves this by allocation and visual display of GPS locations.

The FMMS, Facility Overlay function offers a selection of user defined overlays within the Workbench. When selected, the linear asset and its component lengths are overlaid onto a pre-selected map, providing a visual location of the asset. For the Railway Industry, interested in identifying sections of linear assets or track, “Rail Track” may be selected from a browse table whereupon a visual display of rail track will overlay a map according to GPS positions. From this display specific sections of track may be selected using point and click techniques and maintenance work assigned to the asset. Additionally all facility information, including the GPS readings for the item, may be viewed. Non-linear assets such as Rail Crossings, Signals, Bridges, Tunnels etc may also be overlaid onto the Map and the Linear Assets as displayed, again based on their recorded GPS data.

GENERAL INDUSTRY FUNCTIONS

9. Certified Items functionality ensures correct replacement parts are used.

Certified Items primarily relates to items effecting safety of an operation. Serious and sometimes deadly consequences arise when maintenance parts are not replaced with the correct quality replacement item. For example should a gauge or a hose in a high-pressure application or containing hazardous materials be replaced with an item of a lower rating, an unacceptable risk situation is created. Such situations often occur where parts are so numerous, that the work management process fails to identify and manage the replacement function properly, resulting in unintentional change to parts specification.

KDR, in collaboration with Australian Defence industry specialists solved this problem via development of Certified Item functionality. Certified Items is a logical, user-friendly FMMS application with the ability to identify, report and manage the replacement of items of plant with the correctly specified replacement part.

10. Work Packaging allows contractors to plan ahead.

The Work Package module provides users with a tool by which maintenance jobs can be collected or grouped together as one work package. For example, a grouping of specialised jobs or maintenance projects to be carried out over a specific periods. This work package can be assigned to a contract, or a project, or internal shop or resource, or to a supplier/contractor for the purpose of quotation or work assignment.

Often the contents of a work package are subject to negotiation and budgetary constraints and therefore go through multiple revisions before final approval and acceptance. An audit record is kept for each change to ensure that work does not unintentionally get dropped form the work schedule.

Click on the Industries >> Rail menu above for more information.