Project Update - May
Project Schedule
The Digital Maintenance Project is continuing to progress per schedule. Phase One, which entailed data collection via a survey and site visits, is closed. We have completed our analysis of our survey results, and generated a report of the outcomes, which will be covered in an upcoming academic paper. Thank you to Northern, DB Cargo and Rail Freight Group (RFG) for allowing us to complete the site visits and support of the programme.
Phase 2 included a full review of generic baseline architectures and a subsequent report was created for this. Creating a generic baseline allows us to understand the homogeneity of fleets with different levels of digitalisation and ensure that our proof of concept development is not too closely coupled to a specific platform or technology.
Work has begun on Phase 3, with refinement of our Safety Related Application Conditions (SRACs). Our development team is working on our proof of concept, with the plans of being able to demonstrate our first SRAC in June. Preparations for the Testing Phase (4) have begun, and this will be vital for verification and validation of our proposed solution.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
We assembled our digital maintenance advisory board, with representatives from regulators, operators, system integrators and OEMS, with the first meeting to be held in August. The Advisory Board will review our processes, provide feedback on a demonstration of our proof of concept and confirm our testing findings.
We are preparing our first EDI blog to the website (coming soon), which will highlight how we are implementing dead awareness in our project to support all aspects of inclusion. Further information on this can be found in our EDI FAQ on our project page, and our EDI video.
Communication and outreach
A presentation on the importance of managing Digital Maintenance through procurement was given to the rail buyer Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme (RISQS) community at a conference organised by Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB). This presentation has now been made free to view from European Railways Cluster Initiative (ERCI):
Dr Emma Taylor spoke on Digital Maintenance for Rolling Stock Emerging Challenges in Safety Cybersecurity and Data at the Safety and Reliability Society (SaRS) webinar. This presentation has now been made free to view online:
In June, the team will be leading development of digital maintenance skills in the rail industry as part of the World Congress in Rail Research’s Professional Growth Session on How to Innovate in a Safety Critical Industry.
We have also created a central hub where you can find all of the resources and content related to the project: WCRR - RazorSecure Resource Hub