Toby Horstead, RailCorp - Major Periodic Maintenance; Asset Life, Criticality, Priority

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National Turnouts Workshop Newcastle, May 2013

Major Periodic Maintenance;

asset life, criticality, priority

Toby Horstead, Senior Asset Planner Civil & Track

Asset Planning & Performance

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Why do we maintain?

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An industry concern

Capital Works are exciting, but

We all contribute to the ongoing maintenance.

• Maintenance Approach

• Engage you all in discussing maintenance

• Assessing life, criticality and priority

• Completing the lifecycle

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Basic Maintenance Theory

Modern method - systems whole of life

approach

Reliability Centred Maintenance

Then develop maintenance concept

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Turnout Maintenance

All the problems of plain track and much more

Every moving part is a reliability risk

Every gap or discontinuity is a reliability and

safety risk

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Turnout Maintenance

RM – inspect and correct to hold safety and

short term reliability

How do we manage the long term performance

and sustainability of Turnouts?

Can I anticipate how much work each year or

do I see what fails, then ask for funding?

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Asset Life Cycle Curve

$0

$0

$0

$1

$1

$1

$1

$1

$2

0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Mil

lio

ns

CU

MM

UL

AT

IVE

MA

INT

EN

AN

CE

CO

ST

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

YEARS / AGE

CO

ND

ITIO

N

Cummulative Cost 1 Cummulative Cost 2 Turnout Condition 1A Turnout Condition 1B

Turnout Condition 1C Turnout Condition 1D Turnout Condition 2A Turnout Condition 2B

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WORKSHOP - MAINTENANCE

• A COMPLEX JUNCTION

• What are the likely turnout maintenance issues?

• What is critical, how would you know?

• Can you forecast the future level of maintenance?

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OUTCOMES – Tools to achieve RCM

Technical Maintenance Plans (TMP’s)

Service schedule

• Safety Significant

• Safety Critical

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Inspection Regimes

• Track Patrol –

general, looking for obvious critical

failures, 2 per week

• Turnout inspection –

detailed checks and measurements yearly

• Others

– Ultrasonic – conducted by hand

for critical areas eg switches

– Engine – asses track effects

on rollingstock

– Signals FPLs – prime example

of other discipline

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Comparison of to TMP frequency

Level of maintenance to match desired outcome

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Service Schedules

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Critical Areas of a Turnout

Switches & Stockrails

Crossings (including checkrails)

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Critical Areas of a Turnout

Defects in Turnouts Found by KK by Type

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

crossings switches Other TOTAL

Defe

cts

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Switches

Safety critical to prevent derailment

Critical for reliability especially related to signalling

Moving parts complex interaction

Costly repairs requiring access to track

Without detailed and regular inspection and defect

management, can lead to safety issues

Greatest broken rail risk as rail is unrestrained

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Crossings

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Crossings

Main safety concern is if wheel goes the

wrong way past the crossing

Also impact and damage from crossing noses

Often speed restrictions, crossings may be

difficult to replace on short notice

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Critical Crossing Checks

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Crossing Maintenance

Crossing is heavy impact point

Requires monitoring

Maintenance grinding of flow, requires access

Weld repair or replace,

some repairs can become impractical

K crossings present special problems

Blunter angle with higher impact

Unchecked area

Competing tolerances to be met

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Determining Average Major Maintenance

ASSET POPULATION

STEADY STATE =

AVG ECONOMIC LIFE

• Fit for purpose at lowest cost of maintenance

• Mix of fixed interval and condition based

• Organisations are reliant upon their own Engineering

experts and industry experts

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The RailCorp experience

• Over 2,500 discrete turnout assets

• Varying age profile, configuration, use, movements

• AMP based on SS, backlog identified

• TO life based on bearer; Concrete = 50yrs, Timber = 30yrs

• SS renewal level currently 56 mainline TO’s per year

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Average renewal vs actual and forecast

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Turnout Age Profiling ≈ Condition

Turnout Age Profile at 2011/12

<10 years old

>10 years old, not within 10 years of avg asset life

Within 10 years of avg asset life (due for renewal in next 10 years)

Backlog (at or beyond avg asset life)

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Varying approaches to maintenance

• Availability of funding, access, resources and desired customer outcomes can all have an influence on the maintenance strategy.

• Valid approaches can include:

– Upgrade in lieu of ‘like for like’ renewal or refurbishment, gain benefits of reset life, increase inspection intervals, new technology, operational benefits

– Renew only ‘like for like’ and refurbish

– Increase levels of refurbishment and corrective maintenance and delay the need for complete renewal or upgrading

– Fix on fail; identify defect, apply track speed and fix when funding and access allow

• Value for money scoping – fit for purpose

• Greatest reliability improvement for RailCorp is concrete bearers

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Fit for Purpose

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Understanding avg economic life

• Renewal is based on replacing the entire turnout and can

be underpinned by the long life component – bearer life

• The more difficult question is then the economic life for:

– Turnout refurbishment

– Turnout resurfacing

– Turnout grinding (as a whole)

• Actual data – has it been recorded, does it give a cycle?

• But what is the appropriate cycle?

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Turnout Grinding / Turnout Tamping

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Turnout Refurbishment

Trailing

Facing

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Prioritised Turnout Maintenance

Now we know how many

how do we prioritise?

Consider

1. Asset Criticality

2. Asset Configuration

3. Asset Performance

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Suggested approach to priority

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• The ideal is hindered by funding, resource and track

access limitations.

• Means the actual priority order is challenged.

• We do not deliver 1 through to 1,900

• Must consider balance against other programs

Suggested approach to priority

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Next Evolution

ASSET

CONDITION Asset Target Score

Measure of

Performance

Asset

Configuration

Test the Asset Condition against the

determined Criticality for that asset

Move to a Steady State for Asset Criticality band

and prioritisation within the criticality band

=

+

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Asset criticality - elements

• Weighted timetable usage

and impact on maintenance

priority

• Impact on On Time Running

• Accessibility

• Results in bands of criticality

Through Facing

4 x

Through Trailing

2 x

Crossing Trailing

1 xCrossing Facing

2 x

Asset Criticality

D

C

B

A

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Asset performance - elements

• Maintenance Cost

• Maintenance Compliance

• Incident / Failure rate

• Asset Age?

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Asset configuration - elements

• Rail Size

• Turnout Geometry

• Bearer Type

• Points Machine Type

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Performance L2

Given Asset Category based on it’s Criticality needs a defined Condition Level.

Req

uir

ed

Asset

Co

nd

itio

n

Measuring Outcomes

Asset Condition Matrix

Min =80

Max = 90

Target = 85

Asset Criticality

ASSET

CONDITION

Asset Target Score

Measure of

Performance

Asset

Configuration

=

+

• May not want top condition

• What can the asset sustain, rather

than what do I need to do to sustain

the asset?

• What does the customer want?

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NEED GOOD ASSET INFORMATION

• Critical to effective Asset Management and MPM

Planning.

• The first step in the AMP – What have I got?

• Information can include

– A record of the asset

– The configuration and age

– Work carried out

– defects recorded and repaired

– MTBF and condition monitoring

• Need improve this element, consider asset owner

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IN SUMMARY

•Turnouts are a critical safety and reliability

aspect of the rail network.

•Must be able to justify the amount and

location of expenditure

•Turnouts should be

– fit for purpose

– at lowest cost of maintenance

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IN SUMMARY

• Understanding average turnout life will support a

forward plan to support customer outcomes

• Criticality, condition, performance, configuration are

considerations for determining maintenance priority

• Need good asset information

•Complete the life cycle –

ask why is that turnout there?

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Next

Challenge