Challenge
Our client, a WA iron ore mining company, was looking to improve their rail maintenance practices
While relatively new rail infrastructure, they were starting to see downtime due to a number of reliability issues across track, signalling and rolling stock.
The rail component of the supply chain was often the bottleneck and with the introduction of a new mine it was likely to remain a bottleneck going forward
Improvement Resources were engaged to improve the rail performance to support their operations and business objectives particularly in terms of reliability and maintenance practices
Solution
Investigated the priority problems with the track, signalling and rolling stock reliability
Data analysis of equipment downtime events as well as rail operating delays
Identified failure modes and prioritised by severity and likelihood. Priority was the high incidence of knuckle failures across the rolling stock fleet due to in-train forces
Implemented maintenance strategies to prevent common failure modes (PM in SAP)
Recommended and implemented car dumper improvement ideas to reduce train unloading time
Based on understanding and experience in logistics, implemented improvement ideas to optimise supply chain availability given rail was the bottleneck
Results
Implementation of preventative maintenance strategies against identified priority threats across track, signalling and rolling stock
Improved rail downtime due to breakdowns and operational delays