Maintenance Performance Improvement for Rolling Stock Wheels

The service life of a railway wagon wheel can be significantly reduced through failure or damage, leading to excessive costs and accelerated deterioration. In order to monitor the performance of wheels on heavy haul wagons, this paper proposes implementing the Plan, Do, Study, and Act (PDSA) maintenance performance improvement process. As a case study, it looks at wheels on the heavy haul wagons of a Swedish company, considering all factors that may influence the need for maintenance. After investigating the PDSA process, it proposes the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for both risk and economic reasons. The paper concludes that the PDSA process and KPIs are useful tools to improve the maintenance performance of railway wheels.