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Rolling stock
Russ Hargrave says the Intercity Express Programme is a prime example of the benefits
of ‘designing in’ maintainability into rolling stock, right from the start
The first Super Express Trains for the
Intercity Express Programme (IEP)
will begin testing in the UK in early
2015, two years before entering full
passenger service. Maintainability has been
tackled as a key requirement of the train
design from the start and the through-life
maintenance philosophy has been carefully
considered.
The IEP includes a 27.5-year
maintenance contract, making whole-life
maintainability a key requirement of the
train design. To ensure this requirement is
satisfied, the maintenance team is closely
integrated with both the design and
procurement teams. The aim is to 'design-in'
maintainability from the very earliest stages
of any train supply contract, and this starts
with a process that ensures all Requests
for Quotation to component suppliers are
reviewed, commented on and adjusted by
members of the maintenance team.
The maintainability requirements of
the IEP units therefore take into account
operational needs, reliability targets
and project costs, and were specified at
project inception. All suppliers have been
requested to provide a complete Life Cycle
Cost (LCC) model in a standard Hitachi
format, and within this model, suppliers
must include a full list of routine, heavy
and likely unplanned maintenance tasks
with all associated costs, labour and spares
requirements.
The HRE (Hitachi Rail Europe) LCC
model feeds into a formal and objective
supplier selection process according to the
particular requirements of the train design
in question. This process allows the most
appropriate equipment for the specific train
operation to be selected, and ensures that
not only the initial build, but the wholelife
support requirements and associated
costs are considered in the procurement
process. Maintenance staff are also involved
in supplier visits from the beginning of
product design and attend prototyping
and first article inspection meetings to
ensure compliance with the maintainability
requirements.
To ensure maintainability really is
'designed in' throughout the design process,
dedicated maintainability engineers who
work for the maintenance department
review all elements of the train design with
the design engineers. During critical periods
these specialists are embedded within the
design team to ensure that issues can be
dealt with promptly, and that where changes
are required, these can quickly be made
during the pre-production stage to avoid
costly re-design in future. In the case of
Hitachi’s existing Class 395, formal reviews
took place on a monthly basis throughout
the design process and the same established
principles are being deployed on IEP.
As the first IEP test trains are built,
maintenance task trial runs will be plannedin
to the build programme and undertaken
with the involvement of maintenance staff
who approved the design. For Class 395 this
work was carried out at Hitachi’s factory
in Japan before the first units were shipped
to the UK, which served two purposes: it
allowed maintainability design changes
to be proposed and very quickly actioned
with the Japanese design engineers, and it
also acted as a test bed for the maintenance
documentation and associated processes.
These could then be modified and rewritten
to provide a functional manual
before the trains arrived at the depot.
Once there, modifications to improve
maintainability continued to be carried out
as suitable opportunities were identified.
With Class 395 in full service we are now
at a stage where continuous improvement
principles and associated modifications are
being applied on a routine basis to ensure
performance and reliability targets are met.
For IEP the same, proven approach
to developing, demonstrating and
documenting our maintenance processes
will be adopted, but will also incorporate
the lessons learned from other projects,
and in particular Class 395. In addition, it
is important to highlight that throughout
the design, test and delivery process, the
whole project team has a remit to ensure
maintenance and support requirements
are continually reviewed and optimised to
ensure we deliver against our contractual
commitments.
Optimising the maintenance regime –
mileage-based, time-based maintenance
and condition monitoring
Historically, the UK has seen a mixture of
July/August 2013 Page 59