Professional Orientation and Practice - Case Study Example

? PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATION AND PRACTICE and Background and Sta y Information The United Kingdom Railway industry is considered one of the oldest in the world. Since the establishment of the locomotive rail network in early 19th century, many changes have been made on the sector in a bid to increase efficiency in operations. Many changes have occurred over the past many decades in the industry, most of which is evident on the technology used in the railway transport (Tobin 2012). Technological advancements have ensured that services are improved through better facilities. To ensure efficiency, the government privatised railways services. The bid to privatise the sector was triggered by the 2003 Railway Act, allowing for private management of the services (Cassady, Maillart, Bowden & Smith 1998). The UK railway tracks are public owned and maintained by Network Rail; however, privately owned rail tracks also exist in tourist areas. To help manage the train services, the government appoints train-operating companies (TOCs). TOCs are awarded franchise to offer train commuter services depending on the validity of the license given. This means that a given TOC can only operate within certain time limit as dictated by the licenses awarded. Now, TOC that provide that are licensed to offer these services are many in number (Tobin 2012). Nevertheless, the increasing cost of trail fares has been a major concern within the sector, within many opting to use other alternatives (“Britain Has Worlds Highest Rail Prices – Survey 1997”). Competition brought about by the many TOCs has brought the need by individual businesses involved to put in place measures to ensure stability and profitability. On this matter, many TOCs franchised to offer their services are seeking ways of reducing costs in order to appeal and attract more customers. In order to maintain sustainability, TOCs operating within the United Kingdom believe that the best way is to maintain the existing fleet. Major part of the revenue is used in maintaining the fleets and carrying out inspection of infrastructures like rail tracks. Therefore, much train operating companies hold on to the fact that maintain ace is a priority in the sector. Presently, rail infrastructure has greatly been improved as is evident by the increase in speed train (Tobin 2012). Just as mentioned above, the major challenge lies with the need for each company to come up with measures to improve service delivery. For this reason, each of the companies is in a process of finding the best decisions that would offer competitive edge over the rest (Chaudhuri & Suresh 1995). TOC- London Midland Background London Midland is one of UK’s train operating companies, having an 867.4 kilometers of rail to cover. The main train operations of the company are carried out within the West Coast Mainline. It is also important to note that its franchise expires in June 2017 after it was extended from the initial date of September 2015. According to the information available in the company’s website, London Midlands Express and London Midland City are the main brands that are used in operations. London Midland makes its money from the sales of tickets to passengers. Now, customers are charged ?25 for every 100 miles of travel. According to the plans by the company, 60,000,000 passenger miles should be served per year, something that translates to 600,000 passengers per year. However, achieving this is guaranteed, as many potential customers prefer other means of transport because of uncertain economic times brought about by the recession. The company needs to make a decision whether to raise or lower the tickets by ?5. In order to bring the issue into perspective, it would important to note that London Midland company has numerous competitors like Cross Country, Euro star, East Coast, First Hull Trains, and Scot Rail, among others, and must thus make decisions that stand to boost its chances to survive in the market. Lowering the price by ?2 would lead to 50% an increase of customers per pound, whereas an increase in fare by ?1 would lead to a 70% decline in passengers per pound. This is an indication that the company must make appropriate decisions. This is the reason a comprehensive maintenance plan would be appropriate to attact more customers. The best way forward would be to find ways of overcoming the present challenges faced by the company. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are one the ways of identifying the areas to be worked on in order to arrive at improved services. So far, the company should be assessed as per the train punctuality (Chaudhuri & Suresh 1995). The main KPIs should aim at the availability of commuter services whenever needed, reliability of the same and the maintenance of the coaches. Key performance indicators (KPIs) Safety is the major KPI that the company must work on. This is shown by the number of accidents and incidents that occur during service deliver. The ability of the trains to avoid collision and derailment would mean that that performance is high (Meier-Hirmer 2008). On the same, there have been a number of accidents involving highway rail crossings, especially on private properties (Chelbi & Ait-Kadi 2001). This must be worked on appropriately. Customer satisfaction is another indicator that can only be achieved by services is delivered on time (Cassady, Maillart, Bowden & Smith 1998). At present, on-time performance is at 70%, something that can only be improved through ensuring efficiency on connection matters. The last KPI would productivity as shown by revenue per employee. This would be shown by dividing the total revenue in a year by the number of employees. If the number increases as compared to the previous year, then it would mean a positive performance. Literature Review In the railway sector, key performance indicators play important roles into providing knowledge on the current situation. Other than showing performance of the company, KPI can also give insight on what should be done in order to improve the performance (Almeida 2001. The best means of transport can only be identified by the availability, reliability and the safety of the means. Safety is one of the ways of measuring such (Heaton 2011, September). When care is not considered, accidents caused by trains are some of the worst. In most cases, these happen through train-to-train collisions or derailment (Taylor & Heaton 2011, September). When such incidences happen, loss of property and lives occur causing physical, economical, and emotional detriments. Customer satisfaction remains to be the main goal of train services (Meier-Hirmer 2008; Taylor, Heaton 2011, September). Therefore, every service provided by the company must ensure that customers or commuters are safe and satisfied. Inconveniences that involve late departures and cancelations are some of the issues that work to discourage and chase away customers (Almeida 2001). on the same note, loyalty from customers come from the excellent services and convenience they receive from the employees. Strategies are important part of any business venture that should be carefully adopted depending on the available research information (Meier-Hirmer 2008; Chaudhuri & Suresh 1995). On the same note, having a clear record on the KPIs can help follow the market trends in a way to inform for the next action. Project Planning- Critical Path Analysis London Midland plans a new project it seeks to embark on a comprehensive maintenance of the commuter components. Table 1 below shows a summary of the investment plan that the company has proposed. Activity Job code Depends on Duration weeks Understand Current State of TOC business A - 1 Identify challenges of TOC B - 3 KPIs defined C A 5 Review current maintenance procedure of train D B 7 Detailed data capture E B 10 Data modeling and analysis F E,D 5 Design NEW Preventive Maintenance Strategy G F 2 Design NEW Condition Monitoring (CM) Strategy H G 2 Pilot Validation of Strategies I F, H 3 Implementation and go live! J I 6 Future business opportunities K J 2 Success report on benefits of NEW strategy L I,J 4 Table 1: London Midland Investment Project Plan According to the table, it is clear that the project is long one at it will run for 50 weeks. For this reason, it is important to perform a Critical Path Analysis as it stands to help identify activities that would ensure a timely completion of the same (Fothergill 1990). However, the fact that many activities are tied to other indicates that not many paths can be drawn from the same to help accomplish the task. A keen at the table shows that most of the activities depend on the previous ones, something that limits the ability to draw shorter paths that can help accomplish the project earlier (Chaudhuri & Suresh 1995). On the same note, not many engineers would be required to work on the project. Maximum, for four engineers would be enough to finish the work. Financial Accounting- Break even analysis Break even analysis is the best way to find out profitability of this new project. According to the above information, the company plans to increase the fare by ?5, something that would lead to a larger decrease of passengers. Conclusions and Recommendations According to the above analysis, it is clear that London Midland will require strategies that will help improve services and attract customers. The maintenance plan put in place for the new project does not look promising since it is long term (Chang 2002). The decrease in fare would only marginally increase the number of passengers, but increasing the same would lead to a larger decrease in passenger numbers. Therefore, the best option would be to embark on a condition-based maintenance that would ensure a continuous development of processes that lead to the improvement of the service delivery (Chaudhuri & Suresh 1995). References Almeida, AT 2001, “Multi criteria decision making on maintenance Spares and contracts planning”, European Journal of Operational Research, pp. 235-241. “Britain Has Worlds Highest Rail Prices – Survey” 1997, Politics 97. BBC. Cassady, C, Maillart, L, Bowden, O & Smith, K 1998, “Characterization of Optimal Age- Replacement Policies”, Proceedings Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium, pp. 170-175. Chang, H 2002, “Analytic Time Delay Study of Train Failure Treatment Mode for MRT System - A Case Study of Metro Taipei”, master thesis, NTUST, Taiwan. Chaudhuri, D, & Suresh, P 1995, “An Algorithm for Maintenance and Replacement Policy Using Fuzzy Set Theory”, Reliability Engineering and System Safety 50, pp. 79-86. Chelbi, A & Ait-Kadi, D 2001, “Spare provisioning strategy for preventively replaced systems subjected to random failure”, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 74, pp. 183-189, Fothergill, J 1990, “Estimating the cumulative probability of failure data points to be plotted on Weibull and other probability paper”, IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 489-492. Meier-Hirmer, P 2008, 'Impact of preventive grinding on rnaintenance costs and determination of an optimal grinding eyde', Proceedings 8th World Congress on Railway Research, Seoul, South Korea, 18-22. Taylor, C, Heaton J. September 2011, "World Speed Survey 2011", Railway Gazette International 167 (9): pp6 Tobin, L 2012, "Global operators vying to run British train franchises", London Evening Standard. p. 50 Read More