The TwinBin system is being adopted by world-class train and rail maintenance facilities with great success. Railway Strategies magazine has featured the benefits achieved by Brammer and Alstom in April’s edition, summarised below.
Railway Strategies spoke to Ian Ritchie, managing director, and Bob Meadows, key account manager for the rail industry at Brammer, the UK’s leading supplier of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) products and services, about the company’s offering and how it is adding value for leading players in the rail industry, Brammer UK is part of Europe’s leading distributors of industrial, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) products and services. Our customers are companies of all sizes in sectors from food & drink and packaging to metals, power generation and, of course, rail.
In the UK we work with companies such as Alstom, GKN, BMW, Tarmac, Diageo, Cadbury, Heineken, Thames Water and Severn Trent
Are there any recent projects or contracts you would like to highlight as a demonstration of your capabilities?
BM: Brammer is providing a bespoke managed inventory solution which is helping to deliver significantly improved maintenance efficiencies and working capital reductions at Alstom’s West Coast Traincare Centre at Wembley in London.
The depot operates around a ‘pitstop’ strategy, with maintenance jobs planned one or two days in advance and a team ensuring all materials likely to be needed are in position at trackside in advance of the train arriving. The strategy was introduced following changes to timetables, which meant less time available for maintenance, creating the need to optimise efficiency and turnaround.
Alstom required a robust but easily accessible storage system for issuing fasteners to lineside. Brammer’s bar-coded Managed Inventory Service manages both range and stock levels for routine maintenance, based on the TwinBin and FlagBin system, with two containers of each component held lineside and a red flag automatically appearing when the first bin is emptied.
Brammer representatives come to the site twice weekly – the first time to check stock levels and order new items, and the second to check deliveries and decant the new stock into the bins.
Alstom has said that the implementation of the managed inventory system has resulted in reduced turnaround times on train maintenance, with the strategy set to be rolled out to other Alstom depots around the UK, where Alstom proposes to implement similar systems for parts storage and ordering in conjunction with Brammer.