The railway industry is poised to enter a new golden age. Billions of dollars, pounds and euros are being allocated to new locomotive fleets and cars, equipment rehabilitation and upgrades, rail infrastructure expansion, new mass transit lines, and the development of high-speed rail systems. Of course there will always be regulatory and funding battles. But the future looks bright for both passenger and freight traffic in countries that have long embraced rail transportation and those that are rediscovering it as a way to ease congestion and reduce the environmental impact of getting more goods and people where they need to be.
With growth and opportunity comes competition, competition between railroads, equipment manufacturers, railcar builders, maintenance contractors and other service providers. TBM Consulting Group has worked with rail clients—such as Norfolk Southern, Alstom, Virgin Trains, and Eurostar—to optimize customer value and expand their competitive advantage.
Whether operating in Europe, North America, South America or Asia, rail transportation performance metrics maintain a singular focus on safety, schedule adherence, asset utilization and cost, more or less in that order. In addition to these fundamental areas, we have worked with clients to:
With so many opportunities for improvement, it can be difficult to know where to start. TBM can help you set priorities and leverage Lean and Six Sigma techniques, which we combine as Lean Sigma, to achieve dramatic performance breakthroughs. We start by helping you build your continuous improvement team’s knowledge and skills, including training, exposure to best practice operations, and hands-on coaching. Using a combination of project teams and the kaizen breakthrough methodology, we help clients to move forward simultaneously in multiple areas. Kaizen teams drastically reduce changeover times, eliminate breakdowns, utilize standard operating procedures, and foster employee engagement.
It sounds so simple. But as any business leader who has tried to understand and implement any operational improvement program without adequate support will attest, it’s all too easy to become distracted by daily demands and fall back into old habits. But if it were easy, everyone would do it and there would be no competitive advantage. The hardest part is always cultural, which provides the foundation for sustainable progress.
Culture change starts and ends with leadership. Getting CEOs and managing directors on board is essential for long-term success of Lean Sigma efforts. Like every industry, many rail transportation companies do not lack for strategy. What they lack is a mechanism for deploying that strategy so that improvement projects and kaizen events link back to their key objectives. Using policy deployment to prioritize opportunities, and Managing for Daily Improvement to make progress every day, TBM business consultants have worked with railway industry clients around the world to generate breakthrough results.
To learn more about our experience and how we can help your company move forward, contact us at 800-438-5535
“ Alstom has brought the knowledge of lean gained in the manufacturing process directly into its maintenance routine, including its work on Virgin Pendolino trains. With the support throughout the years of TBM Consulting Group, Alstom has seen remarkable success in its lean transformation and has continued to strengthen its commitment to the journey.”
"A Change for the Better"
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"The Right Foundations: Alstom's lean train still on track"
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"Norfolk Southern: Giving Customers More Value for their Transportation Costs"
