How the Strukton Systems Rolling Stock department transformed at a stroke from subcontractor to concept developer and software builder.

The Full Monty

The Strukton Systems Rolling Stock department has been active in installing and integrating electrical systems in train units for some years. A small feather in their cap in recent years was the installation and integration of all electrical systems in 252 double-deck units for the Netherlands Railways (NS). This was the more detailed manual work, as usual at the bottom of the production chain, because the trains were from Bombardier, the systems from Alstom - and Systems was a subcontractor. This relatively modest position changed at a stroke in mid 2005. A well-oiled team of highly qualified railway engineers, all from Alstom Traxis, with a mountain of experience in designing advanced electrical systems for trains, trams and metros, moved over to become part of Systems.

The knowledge that Systems acquired with this takeover suddenly positioned the company firmly in the market of design, overhaul and maintenance of electrical systems in rail vehicles. ‘Rolling Stock’ can move up a couple of rungs on the ladder when talking with designers, builders, owners, operators and managers of vehicle fleets. And now Strukton Railinfra has an entire catalogue of new areas of expertise to offer: electrical propulsion systems, inverters, control and diagnosis systems, overhaul, maintenance and repair, replacement of systems and components, EMC/EMI, ATC and ERTMS, optimisation of maintenance concepts and consultancy.

            A niche market

Sjoerd Jansen, managing director of Strukton Systems, explains the background to the radical expansion: “We wish to establish for ourselves a long term position as an independent player on the rolling stock market. We will only be able to achieve this aim by enlarging the scale and scope of our activities. Essential ingredients will be product creation and the delivery of total concepts, both for new construction and retrofit, and not merely on a Dutch scale, but Europe-wide. The arrival of the team from Alstom gives us the capacity to define concepts and to develop software in house, as well as the knowledge needed for both functional and technical specification work. Modular product development, universally applicable, is what is wanted. In brief: control of the production chain. It is a niche market. We will have to acquire an autonomous position in this market step by step.”

The transfer of the team from Alstom Traxis is an indirect result of years of fierce competition between the major suppliers of train units, such as Bombardier, Alstom and Siemens. The struggle led to price erosion for new train units, and that, in turn, led to cutbacks and reorganisations. The knife went in deep, indeed so deep that in some cases development capacity was severely impaired. In this situation, Alstom only had to miss out on a contract from the Netherlands Railways for supplying light trains to have to resort to a drastic reorganisation of Alstom Traxis. And gone was the in-house specialist for design and delivery of complete on-board systems, with all the associated bells and whistles. From one day to the next, this made the step from Alstom to Strukton Systems as logical as it was small; one company's cutback was another's expansion.

Before the takeover, Arjan de Hek was the marketing manager of the team at Alstom, and he is now an account manager at Systems. This was also a small step, but nonetheless into an entirely different corporate culture. “We are now working in a smaller, but far more effective organisation. I no longer need permission from Paris for every little detail. And response speed is vital in our market. We have already noticed that we are a welcome player alongside the major organisations with head offices far away, and which are oriented to standard work in large volume runs. We will continue to carry out consultancy for Alstom. In fact, right now, consultancy is the fastest growing part of our portfolio, which has come as a surprise to us. We are now receiving requests that never reached us previously. This is a measure of the loss of knowledge in the large companies.”

            POSS in the train

Considerably fortified, Strukton Systems is not only entering new markets, but also taking along its successful POSS monitoring system, which offers the prospect of control systems in which POSS is an integral component from the installation stage. Arjan de Hek: “Initially, POSS was for the on-line monitoring of a growing number of rail infrastructure-components. But in the future operators will also be able to gain insight whenever they please into the technical status of the vehicle. POSS is making its entry into the train, which is as logical as can be. This development will require information flows from installations of different manufacturers to be linked together, which many manufacturers are reluctant to do. Not us, though.”

Sjoerd Jansen and Arjan de Hek project a promising picture of a market that appears to be just around the corner, one furthermore with the same characteristics worldwide. This is the market for rail vehicles with an operating life of 30 to 40 years, which have now reached an age between 15 and 20 years. The electrical units are demanding increasing maintenance and the number of components still available is declining. The peak in the life cycle has been reached; it is better and less expensive to overhaul the systems comprehensively.

“And that”, observes Sjoerd Jansen, “is a development that is happening everywhere, from North America to Southeast Asia: anywhere with large scale rail traffic.” This is a grand prospect. But, as Jansen commented earlier, the niche must first be entered step by step.