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
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
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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 whole- life 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
July/August 2013 Page 59
he first Super Express Trains for the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) will begin testing in the UK in early 2015, two years before entering full
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 re- written 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
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 planned- in 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 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
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