Redefining top performance

LCC and RAMS as technological and economic factors of success

The R&D focus of voestalpine Schienen has always been on the advancement of high-quality rail steels; and, for more than ten years now, this has been accomplished, among other methods, by means of the professional application of RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) and LCC (lifecycle cost) strategies.

To make a differentiation: A RAMS analysis provides key data describing the operational behavior of the entire system. While RAMS deals primarily with technological and organizational elements, the analysis of the life cycle costs sheds light on actual cost effectiveness. In doing so, what's sought after is not the cheapest but most cost-effective product in terms of its life span.

Thus fundamental LCC optimization factors include:

1. With an extension of the life span, the date of replacement - that is, the  necessity of a capital-intensive new investment - can be correspondingly postponed and moved into the future
2. Maintenance costs - already the greatest cost pool for track operators - can be significantly diminished by new maintenance regimes that factor in the heightened product quality (like fewer grinding cycles)
3. The improved availability of the track (resulting from shorter downtimes and/or longer operating times) has a positive impact on financial liquidity, too - potentially higher earnings from track access charges, while concurrently avoiding having to pay fines due to unavailability or speed restriction sections.

Numerous track tests, in cooperation with diverse railways and local transport operations worldwide, confirmed that heat-treated rails generate a multiple extension of the period of use.

The same verifiably applies to rolling contact fatigue of rails, a rapidly spreading, serious damage phenomenon: heat-treated rail steels demonstrate a significantly greater resistance to crack formation.

Hence the operational availability of the track can be increased in an extraordinary way, at the same time maintenance and total system costs can be drastically scaled down.