18.07.19
Network Rail at TransCityRail Midlands event to deliver solutions
Network Rail executives tagged the prestigious TransCityRail Midlands event at The Vox Conference Centre, Birmingham, as a “key” calendar event and hailed it as a great vehicle for meeting new suppliers.
Network Rail’s Jamie Cowman, Head of Continuous Improvement, called the event crucial for Network Rail’s strategy of openly liaising with suppliers and being open to new approaches and ideas.
He said: “When we say we put passengers first we want to turn that narrative into action. At the minute, these are just words - but that’s why are attending TransCityRail Midlands.
“We can work with our customers to work with their customers – the passengers, the people on the ground, and by working together collaboratively we can find solutions which make things better for the people who matter.
“These are the people who catch the trains, and the people who use the stations. Doing it on our own is no longer the perfect solution, and the optimal solution is working with our customers at TransCityRail Midlands and working with the people who are our customers.”
Midlands resident John Bilsland, head of Continuous Improvement at NR, spoke from first-hand experience about the: “Improvement happening on the railway right across the organisation.”
He added: “I experience it first-hand in the Midlands, so I can see what we are trying to do as an organisation, and how that is impacting positively our customers.
Opportunity to embrace wider concepts
“What we have is an opportunity to embrace wider concepts, wider ideas, improved quality, and delivering a more reliable and robust product, and one which will deliver a more reliable service to our passengers.”
Network Rail’s Jamie Cowman enthused that the organisation was at the start of an exciting new journey. He said: “We have been doing continuous improvement for five or six years as a business.
“Quite often solutions are out there amongst our supply base and we need to engage with the supply base to understand some of their ideas for solutions. We can trial the products on our network and we can make that a better travelling experience for the end customer if we engage with those suppliers.
“Original manufacturers can get access to the infrastructure and utilise some of their ideas and experience and techniques. We can put these into our trials when we are looking for root cause analysis problems.
“It’s about looking for the things of the future to create the step changes which we have talked about and want.
“We want to work as the middle person to engage with the supply chain and get solutions onto the frontline infrastructure.”