Cut the Right Costs – The Maintenance of Rolling Stock

In any transport business, maintenance takes a big slice of the cost cake and continually needs to get leaner. Depot managers will be hard pushed to explain where such cuts can be made without impact on service. It is likely that in the first tranche of cost-cutting maintenance will be ring-fenced but, in the future, how can we intelligently reduce costs and yet improve value? An experienced planner once suggested that matching load (work hours required) to capacity (people hours to turn spanners) is everything in vehicle maintenance value.