Planning to Extend the Life of Major Assets: Metro Rail Example

Abstract

Purchases of major long-life assets such as rolling stock, planes, wind turbines etc., represent a substantial investment by companies or governments, from which the owner needs to ensure maximum return over the asset’s economically viable operational life. A big question facing industry is: “What tools and techniques could be used when planning to introduce a major long life (40+ years) asset, to extend the design life and could this be achieved in a cost effective manner?” This chapter discusses one particular example of how a customer explored the potential to extend the life of their asset purchase by approximately 50 % and the methods they were using to achieve this. Of particular interest is the creation of a decision support tool in the form of a Whole Life Cost Model. What this provided was a method to assess the affect of various factors, such as degradation, inflation, additional load (e.g., 2012 Olympics, extended running hours) to determine the circumstances under which life extension would be financially viable, or early replacement would be a wiser investment. The reader will also be introduced to Lifecycle Reliability Engineering and how it links to Asset Management through tools such as Reliability Centred and Risk Based Maintenance. How lessons learnt and problem solving processes link to Reliability Growth Plans.

Detailed in this chapter are the experiences and methodologies used when considering ways to extend the life of a new fleet of trains for London Underground, which included a Whole Life Cost Model (WLCM) to be used as a Decision Support Tool by the Fleet Asset Management team at Metronet BCV and SSL, two of the three companies formed by the Public Private Partnership (PPP) to, “Renew the Tube,” a project initiated to bring private enterprise thinking and investment into London Underground. Although the PPP failed, for a variety of reasons, the thinking, tools and techniques introduced carried over to London Underground and continue to have a positive affect on asset management within that organisation. As a result, London Underground became the first train operating company to achieve PAS55 certification for their asset management strategy and regime.

This is, therefore, a case study and not a purely technical discussion. It describes the thought process and background to developing the WLCM, as well as going into the WLCM structure.

I will also describe other tools and techniques, such as Six Sigma, 5S and other elements of Lean Thinking introduced to improve working methods and enhance the availability of the existing and future fleets.

Although commercially sensitive at the time, the performance data can now be shared as it comes from trains that are no longer in service or whose maintenance regimes are unrecognisable from those in place at the time of measurement.