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Supply Side: Wabtec, Navis

Written by Marybeth Luczak, Executive Editor
Indian Railways selected Wabtec to help it improve fleet availability by detecting and addressing certain defects before potential in-service failures.

Indian Railways selected Wabtec to help it improve fleet availability by detecting and addressing certain defects before potential in-service failures.

Wabtec Corporation has landed a contract to support Indian Railways’ “Smart Yard” initiative. Plus, Navis will supply a terminal operating system to ITS ConGlobal for the new Mid-Willamette Valley Intermodal Center in Oregon.

The Central Organization for Modernization of Workshops at Indian Railways has awarded Wabtec a contract to support its Online Monitoring of Rolling Stock (OMRS) project. Slated to improve fleet availability, OMRS will help the railroad detect and address certain defects before potential in-service failures, according to Wabtec.

Wabtec described OMRS as “a wayside solution comprising Rail Bearing Acoustic Monitor (RailBAM) and Wheel Condition Monitor (WCM/ WILD) systems to detect faults in the axle-journal bearings and wheels of rolling stock. The RailBAM technology uses acoustic signatures from bearings to identify bearing defects in advance before they would be identified through human inspection. The WCM technology uses impact forces exerted by wheels on to the rail to identify wheel defects. The OMRS systems enable operators to optimally plan the inspection and removal of defective bearings and wheels based on condition instead of fixed time-based inspection schedules.”

OMRS is part of Indian Railways’ “‘Smart Yard’ initiative, which will showcase the next generation of condition-based predictive maintenance technologies,” Wabtec Digital Electronics Group President Nalin Jain said.

COFMOW is managing the deployment of Indian Railways’ Smart Yards across the country. As part of the contract with COFMOW, Wabtec reported that its teams in Australia and India will lead the design, development, supply, installation and commissioning of 97 OMRS equipment sets in various zonal railway locations across the country. Wabtec added that data from all wayside OMRS systems will be fed into a Central Data Control Center to be established in Delhi through the Wabtec Fleet ONE software.

In related developments, Wabtec in January acquired New Delhi, India-based MASU’s railway friction business.

ITS Conglobal has selected Octopi by Navis’ cloud-based terminal operating system for the Mid-Willamette Valley Intermodal Center in Millersburg, Ore., which will open in late 2022. Located where the Union Pacific main line, Portland Western Railroad and Interstate 5 come together, the facility will be operated by ITS Conglobal and is slated to handle 50,000 containers per year.

Navis said the terminal operating system will provide “core planning and execution capabilities,” such as EDI exchange, gate processing, yard management, rail processing, and critical reporting and invoicing functions, and integrate with ITS Conglobal’s transportation management system and Sight.IO AGS solution.

“It was important to us to find a holistic solution capable of connecting with our automated gate system, as well as communicating in real time with our other commercial shipping partners,” said Ryan Swartz, Vice President of Operations-Intermodal at ITS ConGlobal, an operator of intermodal, finished vehicle, and depot service terminals with more than 120 locations across the U.S., Mexico, and Costa Rica. “Navis is the right partner for us as we grow our operations in the region.”

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