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Rightsizing the Railway Signal Workforce: a Zero-Based Resourcing Approach Towards Asset Management

Classic asset management approaches begin by inventorying all infrastructure assets and then assigning maintenance tasks and resources. Our approach collects similar data, but by starting with current personnel assignment and describing their job responsibilities and work processes, staff resistance in a railroad infrastructure owner-operator environment is minimized. Resulting "manning model" quantitatively measures signal maintenance burden including Federally mandated tests, trouble tickets, non-FRA maintenance, overhead and vacation coverage, location/shift assignment, administrative process, and work curfew productivity losses. It is capable of delivering immediate results by rightsizing allocation of workforce across shifts and maintenance base locations--even before all assets are formally inventoried. Typical data from a commuter passenger railroad shows that work curfews and shift assignment constraints have significant impacts on workforce productivity. Just over half of signal maintenance employee-hours are devoted to Federally mandated tests, whilst non-FRA and repair maintenance consumes about 25% each. These indicators provide intelligence driving strategic management actions to improve signal maintenance cost-effectiveness. This model provides workload-based employee assignment by craft, location, gang, and shift for maintenance manager use, but also provides analytical basis for establishing or abolishing positions in the budgeting process. Comparing its results with current employee payroll provides a measure of how much staffing stress the maintenance organization is under, which can help measure whether the current overtime usage is appropriate. Asset and maintenance task inventories collected in this process can also feed normal asset management processes to assess replacement cycles, asset failure risk, and to inform strategic and investment decisions.