From shop floor to track: How Alstom brings new products into service
From shop floor to track: How Alstom brings new products into service
Ensuring that products perform as they should when they are delivered to the customer is the job of a specialist outfit within Alstom’s Service organisation. Stéphane Guy, Vice President for Product Introduction (PI), explains how railway products and systems are looked after in their first years of life.
Stéphane Guy joined Alstom in Paris in 1988 as a Marketing Manager and quickly embarked on an international career within the company. His journey has included key roles in sales, business development, and strategy across countries like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom. In 2008, Stéphane became Director of Services Operations for France, followed by the MENA region in 2010, and then Services Operations in South Africa within the Gibela joint venture in 2014. He was named Managing Director of Services for the France region in 2020 and became Vice President of Product Introduction in 2021.
Connect with Stéphane on LinkedIn!
What is Product Introduction (PI), and why is it essential for supporting customers with new rolling stock?
SG: PI covers all the activities of product delivery support that are performed within our customers facilities. In a nutshell, we prepare all the activities related to the execution of the warranty. When a train, railway system or subsystem is delivered from the factory, it will be commissioned and supported, for usually a two-year warranty period, in close collaboration with the customer. We must demonstrate that the product reaches the contractual level of performance, so it is an essential service, both for Alstom and our customers. Once fully accepted by the customer and at the end of its warranty period, we hand this product over to the Customer maintenance organisation. We ensure a seamless transition for the customer from the manufacturing world to the service world.
Our PI organisation has over 2,000 people scattered all around the world, covering over 300 projects at any one time. We are strategically deployed a cross 260 customer facilities and manage around 15,000 new trains that are transitioning to service operation.
What advancements in PI is Alstom making to enhance operations readiness and support for customers during the warranty period?
SG: The biggest game changer is that we mobilise PI from the onset of a project. Traditionally, we used to start work as the trains were being delivered to a customer facility. Today we are engaged with a project from the very beginning, to ensure that we can put reliability at the heart of our design and we can better support our product in the early life of the warranty requirements. We start talking with our suppliers early on, so that when the product is delivered to the customer, we have the best possible conditions for a successful product introduction.
What solutions are our PI teams implementing to support the delivery of new products?
SG: Trains are increasingly incorporating more technology and intelligence, along with data and software, so products are becoming more and more complex to meet the increasing demands of passengers. Our customers benefit from our expertise as a service organisation and supplier of equipment and systems. For example, in South Africa, we were commissioning and delivering locomotives for Transnet, and halfway through the contract, the customer realised the advantages of having our technical expertise and our ability to source materials and spare parts, the lack of which had been restraining their operations. We now have a 15-year service contract, supplying spare parts and providing technical support, while also accompanying Transnet in its service transformation. This is one of the enhancements that PI delivers when we support the delivery of trains and railway systems.
The other area is in the digital field. We are using digitalisation to monitor the performance and reliability of trains, which is particularly important for field activities. For example, on the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) in Montreal, where we are currently commissioning trains, our HealthHub™ solution for condition-based and predictive maintenance not only enabled us to support the start of commercial service with a high expectation of train availability, but also to achieve a high level of reliability in record time. So, technology helps us to be proactive and efficient.
How do Alstom's PI teams enhance the performance of our products to meet the demands of customers operating under extreme challenges?
SG: We are the first users of our customers’ trains and, while this equipment is under our care, it is very important for us to support our customer’s commercial operations, particularly in critical situations. For example, for an international sports event in Paris, new lines and new fleets were added to the transport system. We needed to support our customers, and we had teams on the ground working on a 24/7 basis for the entire duration of the event.
It was ‘all hands on deck’, from people in the back office to people working day and night or being on call, as well as people on the trains making sure that nothing could possibly impact passenger services. It went extremely well, and I think we contributed to the success of the event. It was probably the most demanding mobilisation of our teams that we have faced. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, we also had to mobilise teams in incredibly intense and sensitive conditions to support our customers’ commercial services.
How can the return of experience gained from PI improve future product design and maintainability?
SG: We are the first loop of return of experience on train design. We work in closer-than-ever collaboration with the designers, the manufacturing sites and the maintenance organisations to convey what’s happening on the ground and to suggest product improvements. This is part of our continuous improvement culture. We expect the trains to be easier to service and more reliable from one project to the next.
Alstom decided to put Product Introduction within the Services organisation as it is the most able organisation to accompany the customer and to develop a close relationship with them. This customer intimacy is a key value at Alstom. This move also created a stronger connection with a positive tension between product manufacturing and service introduction, and this ensures that we deliver the best possible serviceable products to our customers. Maintenance and train operation is at the heart of what we do, and this feedback improves the next products that we design.
