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Taking advantage of technology to tangibly improve operations
Depending on the source quoted, railroads may spend between 15 and 20
percent of their total revenues toward capital expenditures. Although only a small
portion of this spending actually is invested in rail automation equipment (such as
interlockings and grade crossings) and controlled signaling equipment, it is
somewhat surprising that these big-spending railroads typically divert less
attention to the performance of these automation systems and the equipment
they control than analogous factory automation purchasers.
Probably due to the relative recent introduction of micro-electronics as a
replacement for relay logic (compared to the factory automation world) very few
railroads can even report field-based reliability figures for their suppliers’
components or controlled equipment like switches and signals. The few who do
attempt to track this information are generally relying on the manual collection of
field data via personnel and often estimating quantities for trackside equipment
base on normal traffic patterns.
Manufacturing and Process automation companies however, tend to apply more
attention to this area. Due to the implementation of quality and productivity
programs such as Six Sigma, TPM, CTPM, etc. (see Links page) many major
industrial companies have taken a systematic approach to the analysis of supplier
performance and its effect on their own productivity. Due to automation
equipment's critical position in process control applications, the PLC has provided
a crucial piece of the puzzle in this area.
The goal of increased efficiency has lead to the establishment of indices such as
TDC (total downtime cost) and OEE (overall equipment efficiency) which attempt
to calculate the real total losses that occur in the event of system unavailability
and its frequency. The premise for these analyses is the collection of data from
installed systems and the equipment they control (number of days in service,
number of operations, environmental conditions, etc). Although such features
began to appear first on individual controlled machines, this data proved relatively
useless due to the lack of integration and reporting - data coverage was spotty
and incoherent. Why is this data collected at the local controller?
The results of these data provide guidance in analyzing the performance of
suppliers, the stocking of spare parts, and the planning of preventative
maintenance. The modeling of overall system sensitivity and downtime costs at
different process locations is also used to determine which systems or subsystems
should have redundant systems applied.
In the factory automation industry this area is now evolving into new
requirements for automation systems, and the need for new products and
functionalities. The goal is now the automatic collection and analysis of all data in
order to avoid the manual collection of data and the attendant analysis of this
data. A further effort is to ensure the compatible nature of this data from
different suppliers in order to support consistent analytical results. Some new
products are currently emerging which do nothing but collect and analyze such
data in the attempt to collaborate data from different automate system suppliers
in a uniform and coherent data structure. More interesting for railroaders is the
new features which are emerging in the logic controllers themselves in response to
these pressures.
One of the most important aspects of this new functionality is the ability to make
such data available to a company's Business Network, Typically such data is
needed on a company network which is independent from the SCADA system
(dispatch center for railroaders) interfacing to the logic controllers themselves.
The ability to get such information easily into the hands of an office worker drives
several interesting features of modern automation equipment. Please see the
Functionality and Applications section of this site for further information.
It could be argued that such analysis and features are even more important to
railroads given their capital-heavy nature, certainly the application of indices such
as total downtime cost would be expected to demonstrate a very high cost of
system disruptions compared to factory disruptions.
Lessons for Railroaders:
1. Intense analysis of system performance, criticality and the true affect on
financial results is gaining in importance and capital-intensive railroads have much
to gain.
2. The quality and depth of any such analysis is premised on the quality and
quantity of the underlying data. Logic controller provide an optimal location for
the collection and reporting of this data.
3. Attention must be paid in the early stages of such developments that the data
is compatible and able to be integrated in analysis independent of the supplier of
the controller. The best way of ensuring this compatibility is for the user (railroad)
to define the data structure and collection and reporting methods.
4. This data must be easily available to the Business Network in order to be of real
value. Special attention must be paid to the ability of automation equipment to
deliver such information independently from its communication with a dispatch or
control center.
some of the most
capital-intensive
businesses in the
world
However, factories
tend to apply a
more systematic
effort to their
systems'
performance
Indices such as
True Downtime
Cost and Overall
Equipment
Efficiency require
a centralized data
source - the logic
controller
Data consistency
and compatibility
becomes an
important focus
The data has to
be made available
to the company's
business network
manufacturer
reports a
production line
downtime
cost of 15,000
USD per
minute!
