PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY
Rolling railway maintenance to a digital destination In the rail industry time is valuable currency. SKF’s latest digital innovation is proven to extend maintenance levels and keep rolling stock rolling as much as possible.
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ONDITION-BASED MAINTENANCE (CBM), which involves measuring and monitoring parameters such as vibration and temperature to spot anomalies at an early stage, has been applied for a long time in many industries. The monitoring aspect is commonly known as conditioning monitoring. Historically, the rail industry’s maintenance regime is to service trains on a time or mileage basis. Though this approach has been used successfully for many years, it does not take account of whether parts actually need replacing. Inspection can only take place when trains aren’t running, and maintenance actions require rolling stock to be taken out of service, or lines to be closed for extended periods. As such, maintenance costs remain one of the biggest concerns for the industry, due to aging train fleets and the increasing need for train availability. Adoption of CBM is steadily growing thanks
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ISSUE 5 2019 | RAIL EXPRESS
to significant innovations and the availability of technology. Digitalisation is making a major difference towards how maintenance is executed and can enable the customer to extend maintenance intervals. This can have beneficial effects on, for example, train availability. The less time rolling stock spends in maintenance, the more time it can spend carrying passengers or cargo – this is important at a time when the sector is seeing increased pressures on demand. It can also help with reducing lifecycle costs and inventory management of spare parts, due to the early warnings provided by condition monitoring of any risks and possibilities of incidents. SKF combined CBM with its knowledge in bearings and other components and developed an entirely rail-focused version of its highly successful Multilog IMx platform. This latest innovation combines rolling stock and track condition monitoring in a single, easily customised solution.
Condition-based maintenance is steadily growing in the rail industry.
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