Alberto Martinetti

Operation, safety and human: Critical factors for the success of railway transportation

This paper focuses on three categories of performance indicators for railway transportation: the excellence of operation, system safety and human factors. These are among the most critical indicators for delivering high quality services. This paper discusses the main issues, challenges and future directions of public transportation on these themes.

On the Initial Spare Parts Assortment for Capital Assets: A Structured Approach Aiding Initial Spare Parts Assortment Decision-Making (SAISAD)

In the capital-intensive industry, maintenance expenditures can add up to several times the initial investment. In order to be competitive in their business, owners and users of these capital goods have to take into account the total life cycle cost at investment (e.g. the lifespan of a capital is often more than several decades), the renewal decisions for their installations and the logistic management of the spare parts. Erroneous or unstructured initial spare parts assortment decision-making part of the logistic management can lead to undesired downtime and increases the risk of obsolete or unavailable components. Decision making is complicated by non-existent data in the early design phase and several information management problems. Based on a case study at Netherlands Railways (the largest maintainer of rolling stock in the Netherlands) and literature review a Decision Support Model to structure and improve the data gathering for more effective initial spare part assortment decision making is proposed.

Storytelling as a strategy in managing complex systems : Using antifragility for handling an uncertain future in reliability

Abstract The changes currently being experienced by industry demand more flexibility and more interconnections. More interconnections mean more extended domino effects within a network in case of failure. Using the powerful tool of storytelling, this paper aims to highlight the need for a mind-set change in approaching reliability. Firstly, the paper will briefly explain why professionals need new tools and techniques for facing an uncertain future from a reliability perspective. Secondly, an explanation of the increasing importance for embracing disorder will be given, pinpointing the limitations of a deterministic approach and the benefit of a more antifragile method for reliability. Afterwards, the paper introduces the storytelling technique as a tool for breaking the common mind-set on reliability approaches, using a story based on the Dutch railways for underlining the value of antifragility in preparing for unexpected events. Finally, the paper discusses the findings and reflects on future research that would substantiate the benefits in several industrial sectors.

Flying asset: Framework for developing scalable maintenance program for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)

Purpose The paper aims to create a Framework to provide a Scalable Maintenance Program for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in order to choose the most suitable and feasible maintenance strategy in terms of reliability. Design/methodology/approach The paper opted for a Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM)-based approach to develop the Framework using an UAS as starting point of the research. A linear and user-friendly design of the methodology based on a Boolean flow chart was chosen in order to lead the analyst through the process avoiding as much as possible subjectivity decision making issues. Finally, the Framework was component-level performed by the a UAS company gathering feedback on its applicability. Findings An agile and structured decision-making framework for developing scalable maintenance program of UAS is provided. The proposed solution gives the opportunity to tailor the maintenance strategy to the technical characteristics, considering not only the single component but also situations an...

There is no spoon: applying virtual reality for maintenance training of rolling stock technicians

Introducing into operations new rolling stocks requires re-educating technicians and operators for being able to properly work on new and different assets. The training sessions are often performed under substantial time constraints and with a lack of resources. Re-training the technicians is a cost intensive process as it is for training new employees. The aim of the paper is to test and evaluate a virtual reality (VR) training solutions to decrease costs and to increase technicians’ availability, safety during maintenance operations and education performance with the support of Netherlands Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). Firstly, the study explores the possible maintenance tasks analysing the benefits for VR implementations; secondly, it evaluates the attitude of technicians trained with the proposed VR approach. Finally, it discusses the results and provides general applicable suggestions for the use of VR in other training activities.

Safety I-II, Resilience and Antifragility Engineering : A debate explained through an accident occurred on a Mobile Elevating Work Platform

Occupational health and safety (OHS) represents an important field of exploration for the research community: in spite of the growth of technological innovations, the increasing complexity of systems involves critical issues in terms of degradation of the safety levels. In such a situation, new safety management approaches are now mandatory in order to face the safety implications of the current technological evolutions. Along these lines, performing risk-based analysis alone seems not to be enough anymore. The evaluation of robustness, antifragility and resilience of a socio-technical system is now indispensable in order to face unforeseen events. This article will briefly introduce the topics of Safety I and Safety II, resilience engineering and antifragility engineering, explaining correlations, overlapping aspects and synergies. Secondly, the article will discuss the applications of those paradigms to a real accident, highlighting how they can challenge, stimulate and inspire research for improving OHS conditions.

Gamification in teaching Maintenance Engineering: a Dutch experience in the rolling stock management learning

The aim of this study is to evaluate the application of an innovative serious game, based on the asset management of rolling stock, in the training of future maintenance engineers within the master course in mechanical engineering at the University of Twente. The Logistic Support Game (LSG) is a serious game developed together with Netherlands Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS) and Invocate (design firm) as a tool to simulate the maintenance operations of a fleet of trains. The simulation shows four perspectives: the operations manager, the asset manager, the maintenance manager and the financial manager. The three goals of this innovative training are the improvement of student engagement in the learning process, the increas of active cooperation between students with different roles in a group, and the opportunity to receive feedback on decision making. To indicate achievement of these goals, they are linked to the basic needs of learning: competence, relatedness and autonomy. A total of thirty six students played the serious game in two different sessions. At the end of each session, a survey is collected for game based learning assessment. Results suggest that the serious game has a positive impact on student engagement, cooperation, and helps transfer course contents.

Beyond RAMS Design : Towards an Integral Asset and Process Approach

The lifespan to which assets can be efficiently maintained, upgraded or disposed, heavily depends on the characteristics designed into the asset in the design phase. RAMS analysis is a well-established approach often used to reach this target. This approach is however not adequate for handling the complexity of changes and demands placed on nowadays assets. This can lead to reduced performance and unnecessary risk taking. There is a need for a more integral RAMS(SHEEP) perspective including Supportability, Health, Environment, Economics and Politics. Additionally there is often only focused on the asset itself and not on processes supporting the maintenance of an asset. Therefore this chapter does not only give a historic overview on RAMS evolvement, but also aims at answering how the supporting processes can be designed from an integral RAMSSHEEP perspective. We illustrate this by analysing the functional requirements for the Toilet System (TS) of the Sprinter Light Train (SLT).

Traditional Learning vs Virtual Learning in maintenance operations thoughts and reflections from a safety perspective

Flexibility in maintenance operations is one of the requirements for a successful management of capital asset industries nowadays. It demands both the deployment of technology, equipment and man-forces and to provide effective training to the technicians for maintaining the assets in a correct and safe way with short notice. In this scenario driven by time-pressure and high workload, traditional leaning systems could not give the necessary agility in terms of organizational and educational solutions. The use of Virtual Reality (VR) in the learning process could ensure the ability to react to unforeseen events that required more workers “ready-to-work”, providing valuable training and ensuring comparable levels of safety. The paper aims to explore and determine factors for testing training methods to safeguard the performance of the technicians reducing human errors and decreasing the time of training. Finally, it highlights when results between VR learning and traditional learning differ to avoid incorrect conclusions concerning the performance of the educational systems.