CSC POV: Clearing the Tracks with Enterprise Asset Management

Moving people and products quickly from point A to point B and beyond generates revenue. But safety, efficiency, resource management and customer satisfaction are just as important. In today’s turbulent economy, prospering is difficult in every industry sector — everyone is competing to modernize, generate new business, create more value and reduce costs.

The rail industry, in particular, is at an important crossroads due to decades of underinvestment in rail infrastructure. The threat of terrorism, along with challenges like rising fuel costs, regulatory compliance and ongoing demands for greater schedule and route flexibility, means rail companies must persistently eliminate weaknesses in the system to safely avoid service disruption.

One of the principal investment strategies that rail companies can employ to safeguard and grow business is enterprise asset management (EAM). You need up-to-date information to best leverage the trends in asset performance that will drive proactive maintenance strategies aimed at maximizing business performance and minimizing interruptions.

The Case for Enterprise Asset Management

Rail companies have diverse asset groups that need to be managed, including fleets, tracks, signals, stations and depots, some of which are maintained by the companies themselves and others by third-party contractors. The unique challenges associated with tracking these assets over a huge geographical landscape typically create numerous independent IT silos within large enterprises, often with separate and custom asset management applications. These silos are very inefficient given the high degree of interdependencies in the rail system.

EAM systems can help rail companies break down these silos to create a single source of all asset information, providing unprecedented visibility of asset performance across all networks and partners. With an EAM solution, you can:

• Monitor the condition of each asset and maintain a complete inspection and maintenance history
• Make informed decisions about part maintenance, warranty and replacement
• Deploy human and capital assets more efficiently

While the priority is always safety, the improved understanding of asset performance that comes with an EAM system has enabled numerous companies to employ proactive  maintenance strategies that deliver quantifiable financial benefits and a positive return on investment.

Download the full report Clearing the Tracks with Enterprise Asset Management (PDF).