In Rail many companies still rely heavily on paper and Excel files for their fleet management, USB sticks and laptops for data capturing and phone calls or emails to react to failures or plan maintenance. Managing an entire fleet on a centralised platform, easy collaboration with teams and partners for maintenance, and performing real-time monitoring and predictive analytics therefore might seem a bit like science fiction to some operators. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth! There are plenty of solutions already on the market that can help you to tackle railway challenges in a safe and efficient way. Let’s find out how you can implement digital transformation inside your organisation!

1. WWW.RAILNOVA.EU
Digital Transformation
in Rail, Science Fiction
or Reality?

2. The Rail Reality

3. The Rail Reality
Current processes for data capturing, fleet and maintenance
management can be slow and labour intensive:
• Information is gathered and shared too late: no real-time
support for teams on the ground
• Data access is very complex: data and information are
scattered across multiple systems.
• Collected data is not actionable: no actions taken from
diagnostics and no efficient way to collaborate with teams
and partners

4. Also the reality
IT companies and suppliers are ready to tackle the issues
railway organisations are struggling with.
There are plenty of innovative hardware and software
solutions on the market to enable safe and automated data
capturing, to digitalise fleet management processes and to
optimise diagnostics.

5. “Digital transformation is not science
fiction, it’s here! Time to get on
board!
IMAGE: LUCASFILM

6. I. Challenges

7. Predictive
diagnostics
• No real-time
support for drivers
• Data scattered over
multiple platforms
• Manual data
labeling
• Difficult to make
sense of data and
turn it into actions
Access data
• Slow and labour
intensive process
• Data is often
captured after an
incident has
happened
• Multiple data
sources from
different asset types
and components
• Safety concerns
Fleet &
maintenance
management
• No collaboration
with teams and
partners
• No real-time
overview of fleet
availability
• Endless email
threads to plan
maintenance
• Keeping fleet status
on paper or in Excel

8. II. Opportunities

9. Predictive
diagnostics
• Data gathered on
one central platform
• Real-time machine
learning alerts
• Edge computing to
capture new
parameters and
send out new
predictive alerts
Access data
• Automatic real-time
train monitoring
• A single device to
capture data from
multiple data
sources, asset types
and components
• Non-intrusive
reading of data
Fleet &
maintenance
management
• Share asset and
maintenance
information with
teams and partners
• Operational data is
always up to date
• User-friendly fleet
and maintenance
management
platform

10. Sounds good right?

11. But why are a lot of companies not yet taking
advantage of these opportunities?

12. Is digital transformation in Rail an impossible task?
Or, a privilege reserved for the lucky few?

13. “No.

14. Most companies just don’t know how to get
started.

15. and/or
• They are not ready for digital transformation.
• They fear the changes that come with digital
transformation.
• They feel it’s not their problem.
• They fear the cost of digital transformation.

16. “Fear is the path to the dark side.

17. “Digital transformation
doesn’t mean you have to
change everything at once.
It’s a continuous journey to
a better future.

18. A future, in which
• accessing train data remotely
• performing real-time diagnostics
• analysing data for predictive maintenance
• communicating transparently with other parties
is not science fiction anymore.

19. Exemple: Predictive maintenance
III. Example of digital
transformation:
predictive maintenance
IMAGE: LUCASFILM

20. What’s the impact of poor asset monitoring and
late problem detection?
Systematic
workshop entries
• High maintenance costs
• Lower fleet availability
• Don’t capitalise return
on experience
• Rely on experts/third
parties
Unplanned failures
• Train delays and
service disruptions
• No real-time support
for teams on the
ground
• Analysis only after
incident has happened

21. What can predictive maintenance mean for your
business?
• Empower your teams to avoid failures and to react faster to
others with actionable and quality alerts
• Use sensor data & machine learning techniques to perform
deeper data analysis and learn about early warning systems
• Enable internal collaboration and cooperation with partners
to build and capitalise on knowledge and experience
• Decrease maintenance costs and increase fleet availability
without impacting safety

22. When is it time to take the first step?
• Your technical team is working hard but availability of your
fleet is low
• Your existing IT-tools cannot cope with the complexity of
your daily business
• You gained first experience using an OEM monitoring tool
and would like to have a solution for your entire fleet.
• Your management is supportive of organisational changes
and innovative solutions

23. Even the greatest journey begins with a single
step.
Lao Tzu

24. IV. How to implement
digital transformation
inside your organisation

25. Stay on target
Dream big, but start small: be clear on your initial use case
IMAGE: LUCASFILM

26. This is the solution you’re looking for
Pick the solution that fits your business and needs the best
IMAGE: LUCASFILM

27. May the safety be with you
The solution you choose should enable you to decrease costs
and increase availability without impacting safety
IMAGE: LUCASFILM

28. It’s not a trap!
Do a proof of concept to see if the product works in your
circumstances
IMAGE: LUCASFILM

29. Be ready for organisational change
you must.
Be prepared to review your existing processes and to optimise
them if necessary

30. V. The digital transformation
is strong in these ones

31. Railnova’s clients

32. Contact us, we’d love to help your organisation
in their digital transformation efforts
Xavier Jaffré
Business Development
info (at) railnova.eu
Babette Müller-
Reichenwallner
Country Director DACH
info (at) railnova.eu
Christian Sprauer
Founder and CEO
info (at) railnova.eu
Kaat Van de Vijver
Marketing Manager
info (at) railnova.eu

33. RAILNOVA.EU
BLOG.RAILNOVA.EU
The future of predictive maintenance
and fleet management is here...
.
…time to get on board!