Metodik för att effektivisera arbetsprocessen av ombyggnad av tåg med ETCS utrustning. : Anpassning av svenska fordon.

Sammanfattning: In 1996, the European Union decided that all countries in Europe will implement a new standardized traffic control system for the railway. The systems that are available today will be replaced with ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System), which is a safer and more efficient traffic control system. ERTMS consists of four different systems: GSM-R is a radio communication system, ETCS (European Train Control System) is a signaling and safety systems for ground and onboard equipment, INESS (Integrated European Signalling System) is a project that will improve the performance of signaling and Europtirails, which is a standardized IT systems. Railways in Europe have been divided into six different corridors, corridor A to F. Corridor B is the corridor that extends through Sweden. The Swedish part of Corridor B extends from Stockholm to Malmö. This route is much trafficked, therefore it is out of importance that the system should be flawless and work efficiently, when the work of implementing the ETCS begins. Today, the rebuilding work of the trains with ETCS equipment takes long time and is quite costly due to long downtime in the workshop. Many of the small train operators do not have the economy to rebuild the trains and in turn, the system is not flawless, it becomes more difficult to persuade the operators to perform this reconstruction. The work to equip the Swedish railway with ETCS has started and more and more lines are being equipped with ETCS. Train operators that will operate on ETCS lines will be required to equip their trains with this system to be able to operate on tracks with ETCS. In order to handle this volume of trains, it requires that the engineers have more efficient working methods in order to minimize the downtime of the train in the workshop. The aim of this study was to study the onboard departments working process and to find improvement proposals for how the onboard department should increase their efficiency in their work process with help of the Toyota Production System (TPS), The Toyota Way and Standardized way of working. In order to identify the problems that exist in the work process, interviews, questionnaires, observations and case study on onboard department has been implemented. The work process includes work in workshop, approval authorities and other departments within the company. To get an overall picture of the work, interviews with staff from each department and observation and case study of the workshop has been performed. Literature study of Lean Production and standardized work process has been carried out to find an approach that enhances and streamlines the engineering’s working With the help of the Lean philosophy, the study has developed several aspects that need to be implemented in the working method to get a sufficiently efficient working structure from the beginning of the project. If these improvements get implemented in the department, it should minimize the downtime for trains in the workshop. The work of each department works great, but the rebuilding work requires several departments to work together and that is where the weakness lies. There are three main reasons that cause the long downtime; Bad communication between those involved in the process, delay of materials, and high workload. These three problem areas affect each other, therefore the thesis studied all these three problems with extra attention. The engineers have a high workload because each engineer has over 20 different roles. High workload poses a significant risk of work delay and rework due to errors. In order to reduce the workload the thesis has developed a structure to show how the work should be divided and that the work should be done in groups instead of individually. Each engineer will be assigned to a maximum of five roles, the roles should be assigned after skills. To make this possible, it is required that all roles are identified, a role description for each role must be created and the engineering expertise must be identified. Bad communication between the different departments creates misunderstanding and delay of materials to the workshop. Delay of materials is one of the biggest reasons to increased standstill time. To reduce misunderstanding it is required that in the early stages hold a project meeting where all the involved departments are participated. A structure map is needed where all employees can see what authority, roles and project them and their fellow employees have. In this way, communication will improve, as each person knows whom to contact for questions and concerns. Delay of materials to the workshop is a problem that causes delays and longer downtime. The reason for this is that the components that are ordered are incorrect or that misunderstanding regarding delivered time emerges. Another reason is that the company does not have spare parts. When a component is damaged, it can sometimes take several weeks until the new part can be delivered. Workshop staff must, in this case, interrupt the rebuilding until the component has arrived. To reduce the risk of ordering wrong parts and to be able to order the parts in the early stages, it requires an accurate vehicle surveys from the beginning of the project. Much of the work is spent on writing documentation, thus it is important to have a good process regarding document writing. A problem that exists today is that the engineers do not have time to write all the documentation on time and it is postponed to the end of the project. In the final phase of a project, the engineers have large volumes of documentation that needs to be written. Writing a large part of the documentation at the end of the project is not the most efficient way. Therefore, it is good to have a process where the work does not proceed until all the documentation for the specific phase are completed and reviewed. The approval of the documentation takes quite a long time, therefore it requires a working method in which the documentation is sent continuously for approval. To minimize the downtime for the prototype vehicle it requires an efficient work process that minimizes the waste. In order to get such work process it is required that the onboard department of Bombardier RCS implements The Toyota Ways 14 principles and the Lean philosophy of “always striving for improvement” and that the workload most decreases