Maintenance was once referred to as the "necessary evil" , something to be done in order to check off boxes at periodic maintenance intervals, but kept to a minimum in the name of cost reduction and inconvenience. But in highly-legislative, safety-critical industries like rail, maintenance has always been integral to effective management of the network, keeping trains on schedule, and to reduce safety risk to both man and machine.
Today, the challenge of balancing performance, reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety with reduced budgets, human resource, and time, is increased. All of these priorities combined are essential in delivering profitable operations that are safe and effective across the rail operators network. How can you afford to compromise?
Rail operators are often challenged by reductions in budget and reduced workforce availability (headcount) to maintain standards and specifications. The introduction of predictive maintenance systems can simplify maintenance. This is of tremendous value to rail operators and managers who are tasked with obtaining the best value from their investment. Net increases of both safety and reliability are achieved, while providing the maintenance teams tools to assist in detecting and locating potentially damaging electrical faults quickly and accurately.
Engineers and asset managers know the importance of a good maintenance regime and how a planned intervention, performed at the right time using predictive maintenance, is the key to a successful, reliable railway, versus just hoping periodic maintenance finds something on a quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis.
But how can this be achieved in less time, especially in a challenging trackside environment? The solution lies in remote condition monitoring.