Ep: 41 How to be Sustainable in Rolling Stock Manufacturing

Introductions

THERESE: Welcome to our DELMIA podcast, Global Operations on the Go. I'm your host, Therese Snow. Today, we have a panelist discussion in which we will explore the challenges and solutions regarding rolling stock manufacturing and maintenance. Basically, the manufacturing and rebuilding of locomotives and railroad cars, all part of an effort to become more environmentally friendly.

Our focus is on, of course, sustainability, as well as efficiency and technological advancements. Our  experts will share their insights on optimizing design and production processes, enhancing maintenance practices and leveraging digital manufacturing solutions with the focus on the Virtual Twin Experience.

So before we get started and get into details, let's start with introductions.

GUILLAUME: Okay. My name is Guillaume Vendroux. I'm the CEO of DELMIA, the brand with Dassault Systèmes that focuses on operations. My background is full industrial--from aerospace and defense to T&M (Transportation and Mobility) and the tier one suppliers, to Alstom. From there I ended up VP Industrial and now at Dassault Systèmes. 

MIKE: Good morning or good afternoon. My name is Mike Bradford. I am the Strategic Business Development Director for the DELMIA brand focused primarily on the T&M industry, which includes rail.  I've got about almost 40 years of background in I. T. and materials management, management, consulting and pre- and post- sales consulting in the software industry.

ERIC: Hello. I am Eric Ribeyre. I am a worldwide ILS (Instrument Landing System) and MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) Industry Process Expert. I have been in this role for over five years. I have extensive experience-- around  15 years-- in maintenance and maintenance engineering with a complex military system as a contract manager in Emirates. Additionally, I have another 15 years of experience as a Head of Maintenance Engineering for a major rolling stock manufacturer company, Alstom Transport. So, paint and dreams of this business have no secret for me.

Challenges in Rolling Stock Manufacturing

THERESE: Fabulous. Well, thank you! Thanks everyone for the introduction. So, Guillaume, I'd like to start with you. Can you please explain what rolling stock manufacturing is and what are some of its challenges?

GUILLAUME: Sure. I would say that there are different types of challenges and difficult points that need to be solved. I think the first one is obviously the time to market. Developing a train takes time.  You would have to say that engineering is not often on time, but the data, which the clients wait for the train is always the same.

So, in manufacturing, we have to find ways to anticipate, as much as possible, an overlap with engineering to prepare for production and be able to be flawless in execution in order to meet the time to market that is required.  Obviously, we also need to be on the back of our friends in engineering to make sure that it's designed to manufacture and designed to cost at the end of the day.

We are part of the significant cost of a train, and therefore, we e we need to make sure that the train is designed to be efficiently built. That is obviously an important topic lately, or more lately than before. Even a few years back, one of the key topics we were facing in shop floors is supply chain and quality of the supply chain. The management of the supply chain, the design for supply chain to ease double sourcing is something which is also very critical, and it relies on us in manufacturing. To be, again, on the back of engineering, but not only on our suppliers’ to be able to provide them with good plans, good double sourcing  so that we can be agile and robust in our planning. All that, of course, in a context of sustainability, which means that we need to be very careful that we use. Just the necessary in terms of resource, raw materials, et cetera, to have as lean a process, an efficient process, and therefore as sustainable a process as possible.

Rolling Stock Manufacturing, Maintenance and the Virtual Twin Experience

THERESE: Absolutely. Makes sense. Thank you for that. And now turning to Mike. Let's dive into DELMIA’s role in rolling stock manufacturing and maintenance, as well as the virtual twin experience.

MIKE: Thanks.  Okay, well that is quite a lot, so let me start with DELMIA. DELMIA is the virtual plus reality brand of Dassault Systèmes, focused on all aspects of manufacturing operations. DELMIA provides virtualization, so think modeling and simulation, of anything related to manufacturing (such as) products, processes, resources, plants, people, et cetera.

Specific capabilities of DELMIA include things like M-bomb creation--Manufacturing Bill of Materials--- process planning, resource definition, electronic work, instruction, creation, ergonomics, and any other manufacturing engineering-related tasks. This digital manufacturing piece of DELMIA is the core of the Virtual Twin Experience (VTE).

Going Beyond the Digital Twin with a Virtual Twin Experience

THERESE: Well, what is VTE or the virtual twin experience?

MIKE:  VTE is an extension of digital twins. If you watch the industry at all and listen to industry analysts, there's a lot of discussion around digital twins. Some of the things analysts are saying are that digital twins, to be more effective, need to become collaborative and they need to be flexible so they can change over time. The virtual twin experience is model based, not file based, so instead of multiple files, there's a single 3D digital model that is used by all applications. The Virtual Twin Experience is inherently collaborative.  It's also flexible. It can change over time based on real-world feedback or other changes.

It meets what the analysts say are required. And while the digital twin is three dimensional, the virtual twin is actually four dimensional. We've added the dimension of time. So looking at that twin now, but also in the future and in the past.  In addition to that digital manufacturing piece, DELMIA also includes execution: think MES or MOM, as well as planning and scheduling.

But, that link to execution really provides real-time access to manufacturing data for the virtual twin and enables us to connect the virtual and the real worlds. The benefits of all these capabilities together are things like improved efficiency and productivity with minimal costs,  better designed products because of virtualization, improved quality,  increased manufacturing resilience, and truly sustainable innovation.

Now let's talk specifically about how all this helps in the rolling stock manufacturing area.  Think about some of the things that Guillaume talked about. Think about the increasing speed of change in the rolling stock manufacturing industry, especially around new power sources like electric and hydrogen. By designing and testing new products and processes virtually before implementing them physically, rolling stock manufacturers can reduce the time required to change over from old products to new products and the time required for new product introduction. They can improve the quality and reliability of new designs and products, and they can reduce the costs associated with new product introduction and product changeover.

Making the MBOM Process Faster

So again, this really ties back to Guillaume's discussion earlier on the link between engineering and manufacturing and execution and the ability to virtualize that to speed the process and reduce costs.  This also flows into the MRO and maintenance side of the business. Because DELMIA is model based, creating a new services BOM or S BOM for maintenance and MRO from the M BOM becomes a much faster process with far less duplicate effort.

In addition, the services or MRO processes can be tested virtually before being implemented physically, just like the manufacturing processes can. This helps ensure the processes are effective and accurate.

THERESE: Perfect, thanks for that Mike. Indeed, focusing on the speed of processes and reducing costs are very relevant to today's manufacturers. Now, I'm going to get back to you, Guillaume. Tying this all together, I'd like to focus more on the environmental aspect. How can DELMIA  help with its sustainability?

How DELMIA Can Help with Sustainability in Rail

GUILLAUME: I think the first element of answer was given by Mike. I mean, we are model based.  So as we are model based, we can measure the sustainability impact of what we do. we do that and my engineering friends are doing that. That's the solutions upstream.  But we are also doing that by being able to simulate, validate, and optimize the way we're going to build the product.  And make sure that our footprints is as limited as possible so we can leverage the virtual environments that way. This is the first lever. The second lever is in the virtual world. We can also design efficient workshops that will allow for efficient manufacturing, efficient processes, limiting waste in the way the shop is run. Now you put the two together and you have an optimized solution, I would say, to reduce the footprint of production.

You will be right first time when you go into the shop, so you will use less time, wasted material, wasted consumption of electricity and find a good solution.  Finally, as we are able to fully organize and orchestrate the shop floor then will be extremely efficient.  The efficiency as everybody knows in manufacturing goes with sustainability, because again, there is no waste, no overproduction, no underproduction, no waiting time, et cetera. The famous seven mudas (waste in lean manufacturing) of manufacturing will disappear. And therefore, you will have lean production lines or lean production systems, which will limit significantly the footprint that, that you may have.

So again, model-based optimization associated with rigorous orchestration is one of the ways--one of the good ways--to limit waste and maximize efficiency.  Another way into which we can obviously limit the footprint is in maintaining or sustaining the rolling stock for a longer time, so as to make the best use of it and not to have to rebuild and waste materials. The availability of the rolling stock is one of the key topics.  And to the point that in some cases now customers are not buying trains, but they are buying availability. The fact of having easily maintainable trains at a low cost and trains which are durable are obviously a key asset and a key elements in in the overall sustainability cycle.

Connecting Engineering with Manufacturing using DELMIA’s Virtual Twin Experience

DELMIA helps from engineering to manufacturing, leveraging the virtual twin and the virtual  environment to make sure that what has been designed has the proper durability, has a proper life, can be easily recycled. That is absolutely critical. And as it is decided at the very beginning and through solutions such as DELMIA, we can take the beginning engineering connected to manufacturing connected to services or maintenance in a seamless way, which obviously will increase the yield of this, sustainability infinite loop, if I may. The model-based approach of DELMIA associated to a rigorous execution, both in manufacturing and in maintenance, is key to have efficient operations.

THERESE: It's clear to see how DELMIA really does play a role in sustainability. Thank you for that explanation.

Now, addressing this to you, Eric. With rolling stock, an efficient maintenance plan is essential to achieve a reliable, safe, and high-availability system. Can you tell us how DELMIA and the Virtual Twin help with maintaining a rolling stock fleet?

Achieving the Optimal Maintenance Plan

ERIC: Yes, of course. So you're right. The virtual twin plays an essential role to maintain rolling stock by enabling predictive maintenance and optimization.

First, we need to create virtual twin, but not a single virtual twin; a virtual twin for each rolling stock unit in service. These virtual twins are a digital replica of a real-time state and condition for each rolling stock unit. We achieve this by collecting, I will say, operation data from sensors, from operators, from technical database, all external data. This data ensures that the virtual twin reflects perfectly the reality of each unit. Then, based on that, we can start simulation. We can start simulation based on the behavior. And we have a maintenance data model, so we can see the consequence of this maintenance strategy. We can define what could be the best maintenance strategy for each unit because each unit could be a little bit different than the other one--due to the maintenance path, due to the configuration, et cetera, et cetera. Based on that, we can use machine learning and we can train machine learning to predict behavior. And we can design what are now the most effective maintenance scenarios for each rolling stock.

After, we can put that to planning and scheduling and decide which resources are needed and for maintenance, we can put that to the workshop, the shop floor, and define the tasks to be performed by all the operators.  This approach defines the way make scenarios and we define the best scenario to maintain. Each individual trend allows us to, I will say, perform proactive maintenance. We reduce downtime, we increase, of course, safety, and for sure, the global field capabilities at the performance, the top performance.

THERESE: Well thanks for tying this into, a little bit more, of the planning and scheduling. Eric, you talked about training, but can you please explain how these solutions contribute to the maintenance workforce specifically?

Creating a Skilled Maintenance Workforce

ERIC: Yes, absolutely. Creating a skilled maintenance workforce is really important, especially with the new and complex trains. They are harder to maintain than traditional trains. Traditional methods can't, take this challenge. With the modern rolling stock and complex rolling stock, it's a crucial point to train experts all over the world.  Another point is that young people prefer digital media with VR experience more than the traditional reading manuals. Virtual twin for maintenance training is very useful for that.  We can use this virtual twin on our platform and we can create a dedicated maintenance scenario.

It's perfectly fit with the young generation’s expectation. We can promote learning by doing in the virtual world. They can play and redo the training, no matter where they are in the world, regardless of the availability of real equipment because we do that virtually.

This method of training provides a significant benefit to safety, cost, and knowledge capitalization.  By using this (DELMIA) solution, we well prepare skills, and handle complex and model-related maintenance.

THERESE: I think that was interesting, especially to see how training and training in the virtual world really can help the workforce of today, so thank you, Eric.

And thank you everyone for taking the time to speak with me today about innovations in sustainable rolling stock manufacturing and maintenance.

Join Us at Innotrans

GUILLAUME: Thank you Therese and to our listeners. Please join us at InnoTrans September 24 to 27 in Berlin and learn about DELMIA sustainable practices for rail manufacturing and operations. Look for our booth in Hall 6.1, Booth 360 and obviously if you want to connect for a meeting page, on our event page, you will be able to request a meeting with us—and we'll be very glad to have a good discussion with you.

Conclusions

MIKE: Thank you everyone for joining us. We appreciate your time.

ERIC: Thank you. I'm looking forward to continuing this discussion at InnoTrans. See you soon.

THERESE: Sounds great. Thank you again, gentlemen. Information with page links will be posted where this podcast is published. Now I would like to thank our listeners for tuning in. I'm your host, Therese Snow, and you've been listening to DELMIA’s podcast, Global Operations on the Go.