Industries : Rail

Overview //

eB for Rail customers use eB to manage the complete information life cycle of project-related activity from the design engineering and construction phase to the operations and maintenance phase.

eB provides a powerful information modelling capability that allows organizations to quickly and easily structure and organize their project information assets. eB’s predefined, ready-to-use information types provide a rich model for classifying information and establishing relationships between relevant information. Utilizing eB, it is easy to see who is responsible for information, what the information describes, where it is located and what it is related to.

eB ensures information integrity through a robust, built-in change management capability that manages the information assets and their relevant relationships through a proven change management process that identifies the effects of change and manages the workflow for approvals, notifications, releases, distributions, and accountability of changes that occur across the project.

eB’s blend of configuration management and enterprise content management, and its ability to model complex processes, has successfully supported many Rail projects by providing trustworthy information, in context, when it is needed. With its powerful auditing and reporting capabilities, eB provides support for enterprise information governance policies and models business processes though best practices to ensure adherence to regulatory compliance programs.

Beyond the Rail engineering and construction phase, eB supports the operation and maintenance of assets of rail infrastructure, provides exceptional change management features and integrates with a variety of asset maintenance and condition monitoring systems.

Network Rail improves operational efficiency and reduces costs with eB for asset, change and configuration management, providing accurate information to thousands of users.

Business Values

“Our organizations must have configuration management arrangements that cover everything that is important to safety or to demonstrating safety.”

— Engineering Safety Management Fundamentals and Guidance,
UK Rail Industry

Rail organizations are seeking solutions that help them reduce business risk, improve project predictability and avoid costly penalties by improving overall project visibility and information quality.

With eB, Rail organizations realize the following benefits:

  • Information accuracy is vastly improved and can be trusted for business operations
  • Information modeling identifies who is responsible for information, what the information describes, where it is located, and what it is related to – enabling faster and better business decisions
  • Automated classification of information enforces information governance, policies, and controls
  • Powerful records management securely stores all paper and electronic records with defined retention and disposition rules to ensure regulatory compliance
  • Contextual search, retrieval, viewing, and printing of documents and records increases productivity and efficiency
  • Integration with other business applications streamlines processes and eliminates discrete, disparate repositories of information
  • Making informed decisions based on the use of the eB change effects analysis function allows managers to ensure that all affected information is taken into account when planning and managing changes
  • eB has built-in functions to improve project information handover to streamline project completion, ensuring that project closure, including the handover of all necessary information specified in contracts, is not delayed

eB improves project visibility for meeting regulatory mandates, lowering costs and risk of non-compliance. Rail projects frequently involve construction and civil engineering works which fall under the scope of the CDM Regulations (Construction, Design, Management). These mandate that a Health & Safety File, with an Asset Register and Operations & Maintenance Manual are provided at project conclusion. eB is uniquely well equipped to meet these particular requirements.

eB controls the design basis configuration of the assets which make up the rail infrastructure, or Master Equipment List (MEL), and manages the relationships of the physical assets to the information sources (requirements, design documents, drawings, etc.) and other relevant information types (such as people, departments and operating procedures) that underwrite them.

Customers using eB to manage their Master Equipment List in this way are able to interface seamlessly with maintenance management systems, ensuring visibility to an accurate current configuration with the information integrity required to maintain compliance with regulatory mandates. Holding asset information in this way can reduce site inspections by up to 75%, with significant savings in the time and cost of carrying out maintenance programs.

Next Tab: Applications

Applications

“A fall of just 8% in Information Integrity will lead to a reduction in resource effectiveness of up to 50%.”

— Institute of Configuration Management

eB is a enterprise-class information management platform that delivers a comprehensive suite of applications for managing project information for complex Rail infrastructure through its entire life cycle – design engineering, procurement, construction, operation and maintenance.

eB provides standard applications which offer immediate value to the Rail industry:

Requirements management

Identifies, structures, and manages all program and project requirements, including conceptual and detailed design as well as option-eering, milestones, and stage-gates.

Document management, control and distribution

Manages the capture, creation, revision, storage and full document control and distribution (including printing) of all information assets. Includes CAD synchronization with Microstation® and AutoCad®, image scanning, and automated workflow.

Configuration management (CMII certified)

Classifies all asset systems, structures, and components and links them to relevant documents, processes, and activities. Ideal for generating an effective handover of asset-based documents to the client for operations and maintenance purposes.

Change management

Provides a closed-loop, automated process to ensure conformance and information integrity, clearly showing links to other documents, physical items, people, requirements, and processes.

Project modeling

eB provides a powerful project modeling capability that allows for the identification of project phases, stage gates, milestones and deliverables. When integrated with automated workflow, eB streamlines the flow of information which results in unparalleled visibility into overall project status.

Records management

Captures, securely stores, and manages selected documents as records to ensure regulatory and legal compliance. Also effective for the disposal of low-value documents to keep storage relevant.

Project collaboration

eB provides powerful collaboration features that are supported by a highly granular security model. All project participants (suppliers, contractors, consultants, etc.) can be given secure role-based access to project information that is only pertinent to their particular role on the project. When used in conjunction with Microsoft SharePoint, eB offers an extremely flexible collaboration platform for coordinating all project activity with a high degree of control.

In addition, eB has an Application Programming Interface through which integration with other applications is facilitated.

Next Tab: Technology

Technology

Built upon an advanced Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), eB uses the latest Microsoft technologies. Developed with the same technologies as SharePoint, eB embraces Microsoft's .NET framework to form the foundation of its application server tier, web services and user interfaces. This architecture allows eB to easily be integrated to other business critical applications.

eB is compatible with Windows 7 and certified for Windows Server 2008 R2. Enterprise Informatics is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

The eB architecture is proven to be enterprise scalable and highly reliable, and offers the flexibility to adapt to the unique business requirements of a diverse customer base. eB is a highly effective solution for building bridges between SharePoint sites across the enterprise and other information repositories that are required to realize an effective EIM strategy.

eB for Enterprise is certified by the Institute of Configuration Management (ICM) as a four star Configuration Management software platform.

For more information visit the Technology page.

Next Tab: Resources

Resources

eB allows the customer to become compliant with publications such as the UK Railway Industry Yellow Book. This mandates that Configuration Management must be applied across all information being managed for railway projects.

eB also supports the classification of assets in accordance with the London Underground E1140 standard. This utilises a multi-level hierarchy for asset definition.

Network Rail and the West Coast Modernization Project Case Study

A case study of how a safety-critical organization has implemented an eB document management system that captures, stores, distributes, controls and delivers huge volumes of information and provides access to employees, subcontractors, and other third parties on a real-time, on-demand basis. Download

The Informatics of eB

With eB for Enterprise, organizations can quickly and easily model their information consistently and accurately throughout the enterprise to help meet compliance requirements. Download

eB for Document Management Solution Brief

eB for Enterprise’s Document Management is a powerful, full-featured enterprise information management solution for organizations that need to effectively, efficiently, and accurately capture, manage, control, retrieve, distribute, and archive all types of information across the enterprise. Download

Configuration Management White Paper

Configuration management is the logical transition from a conventional document management system to a fully integrated, powerful information management environment. Download

eB for EPC Solution Brief

eB is used within the EPC industry to capture, store, and manage all of the complex data involved in multi-faceted facility projects — but links that data in meaningful ways to people, organizations, physical assets, locations, processes, and activities, empowering EPC providers to accelerate project decision-making and delivery, mitigate project risks, and control the costs of change. Download

EPC Information Life Cycle Podcast

Many of the challeges that occur during a large engineering and construction project are directly related to poor information management, and can lead to cost overruns. In this 20 minute podcast, learn how eB can streamline operational process and ensure information integrity to minimize business risk. Download

Next Tab: Customers

Customers

Transportation Industry Icon   Rail Customers //


eB is used by a number of customers in the Rail industry internationally:

Network Rail   (UK)

Balfour Beatty Rail Projects   (UK)

Signalling Solutions  (UK)

Alstom Rail  (UK)

Carillion Rail   (UK)

East London Railway   (UK)

Thessaloniki Metro   (Greece)

SA Rail Commuters’ Corp  (South Africa)

Department of Transport  (South Africa)

Long Island Railroad   (USA)

Trinity Industries   (USA)

First Tab: Business Values