Invensys Rail's Manufacturing Capabilities
08 December 2010
Invensys Rail's Chippenham site is home not only to the company's headquarters, but also to around 60,000m² of manufacturing facilities, dedicated to the design and production of a wide range of systems and rail infrastructure equipment.
The company manufactures a broad range of products and systems from purpose-built one-off items, to high-volume manufacture. Products span from electronic interlockings and train detection systems to mechanical point machines, colour light signals and relays. Over 5,000 individual lines are manufactured in Chippenham, many of which being configured to meet the specific requirements of individual customers.
With a clear focus on modern production methods, which has seen the introduction of lean manufacturing techniques, the company is now able to respond rapidly to the changing requirements of the market, offering competitive lead times and prices on most of the core product range. With dedicated areas for each product types and technology, the plant is divided into discrete areas covering electro-mechanical, electronics, relays, and pre-wired signalling equipment.
Pre-wired signalling equipment
Invensys Rail is one of the largest manufacturers of location cases and REBs in the UK, with 20 dedicated REB production bays. The range covers both steel and stainless steel location cases, tunnel location cases, re-locatable equipment buildings (REBs), interface cubicles and signalling equipment room racks, with each location case and REB designed and configured to customer's specific requirements. If required, the facility can build up to 1,500 location cases / relay racks per year, with each unit fully tested to TC/2 standard using qualified IRSE licensed testers.
Invensys equipment has been supplied projects throughout the UK, including Glasgow Central Interlocking Renewal, North Erewash and Leamington Spa resignalling programmes as well as the Channel Tunnel rail link and West Anglian route modernisation programmes. The company is also supplying equipment for the Thameslink, Reading and East London Line signalling schemes, providing full technical assistance through an experienced production engineering team.
Since 2008, the company has invested £500K in the pre-wire facility increasing capacity to meet increasing demand from both UK and overseas projects, and the area now includes a dedicated facility for low-volume bespoke equipment such as train describers, technician's terminals and alarm cubicles as well as offering a full prototype wiring facility.
As well as standard items, the company can also deliver bespoke engineering solutions, with extensive experience manufacturing pre-wired products where the customer is the design authority. Between 2006-2007 40 bespoke cubicles were manufactured for use on the Jubilee Line Extension, each cubicle manufactured, TC2 and factory acceptance tested to customer designs and specifications. For these projects, the company provided engineering support throughout the design and manufacturing stages and developed a portable automated test facility to verify cubicle functionality.
Relays
Invensys Rail has been manufacturing relays for over a century. The world's largest supplier of BR930 series products, the company's range includes over 460 variants of mechanical relays for both train borne and control centre applications. Capable of producing up to 2,500 relays per week, the company has recently introduced VISIPRISE, an electronic tracking tool, to more efficiently monitor work in progress and process yields as well as managing production planning and test information.
Electronics
The dedicated electronics unit manufactures equipment for Invensys Rail's advanced solutions and systems, including Sirius computer-based train control; FUTUR ERTMS radio block centre and European vital computer; TBS100 vital processing platform; WESTRACE computer-based interlocking; WESTRACE jointless track circuits and transmission-based signalling systems.
The printed circuit board assembly facility has state-of-the-art surface mount capability in addition to conventional 'pin-through-hole' board assembly. In-circuit test (ICT) and functional testing is carried out at board level using a combination of industry standard and bespoke test equipment. Final unit assembly and test includes functional testing in a simulated customer configuration and soak testing in environmental stress chambers, which ensures a high-level of early life reliability of all electronic products.
With the company's equipment operating in challenging yet safety critical environments, quality and reliability are paramount. Significant investment continues to be made in both plant and personnel to ensure the quality of all equipment, ensuring it can operate just as effectively and reliably in the heat and humidity of Saudi Arabia as the extreme cold of Scandinavia.
Electromechanical production
The electromechanical production unit manufactures a range of equipment including point machines, plug coupled disconnection boxes, train stops and LED signals. A range of conventional filament signals have also been manufactured and supported for over 50 years. The company's production team and designers work closely to develop products that incorporate features which optimise manufacturability, serviceability and installation. For example plug coupled as well as hard wired options on products such as LED signal heads and point machines.
Commenting on the company's production capability, account manager Richard Ward said: "Invensys has a great tradition for the delivery of high-quality, engineered products and systems. With our ongoing programme of investment in plant, processes and personnel, we intend to continue that tradition, developing and delivering robust, reliable and technically advanced solutions that help rail operators to provide increasingly efficient and safe services to passengers across the world."
Invensys Rail operates a product life cycle and component obsolescence management programme and has active membership of the Component Obsolescence Group (COG), which assists in the identification of critical components that may become obsolete. A last time buy policy is operated for any component identified under this programme and this enables us to fulfil future customer requirements.
Continuous improvement
Invensys Rail has an integrated continuous improvement strategy for the delivery of quality and reliability improvements, process, efficiency, lead time enhancements, price reductions and whole life cycle costing. The delivery of continuous improvement events is integrated with the overall strategic operating plan. This ensures that improvement activities in the form of Kaizen events maximise the reduction of non value adding activities and therefore the delivery of process efficiency improvements. Invensys Rail has ten trained continuous improvement practitioners within operations. This team are experts in the delivery of Kaizen improvement activities and take personal ownership of the completion of each event.
