Rail
Standard Operating Procedure Development
Standard Operating Procedure Development
Develop Consulting supported a UK rail manufacturing facility to create customer-specific visual knowledge systems for main assembly tasks and process steps.
The client is a global provider of equipment, systems and digital solutions in freight rail, transit and mining. Their UK facility, with a rich manufacturing legacy dating back to British Rail Engineering Limited, specialises in bogie assembly and wheel shop operations. The site maintains critical overhaul and repair capabilities for the UK rail network.
Results
- 89 standard operating procedures created in 12 weeks
- Estimated annual ROI of £783,000 (based on industry average improvements for digital work instruction implementation)
- Improved efficiency across bogie assembly and wheel shop processes
- Enhanced compliance with regulatory requirements
- Strengthened quality control measures
- Reduced training time for new employees
- Established consistent approach to performance measurement
About the Programme
The manufacturing facility serves 23 different customers, each requiring slight variations in fasteners, torque settings and assembly specifications. A recent value stream mapping activity had identified 24 major process steps in the wheel shop alone, but there was no standardised visual knowledge system to support operators in managing this complexity.
Production teams were relying on paper-based customer specifications and internal engineering documents, leading to inconsistencies in how work was performed. New employees faced extended training periods to learn the variations across different customer requirements, and quality issues occasionally arose from misinterpretation of specifications.
Objectives
The facility needed to create a comprehensive visual knowledge share system that would capture operator expertise, engineering specifications, health and safety requirements and quality standards in a format that was accessible at the point of work. This needed to support 23 different customer specifications whilst maintaining consistency in core processes.
Actions
The project team began by studying each major process step alongside production operators, gathering input from customers, engineering, health and safety, quality and experienced operators. Rather than creating one complex procedure attempting to cover all variations, the approach kept the structure simple by developing an SOP for each major step and incorporating customer-specific variations within each document.
Each process was documented and uploaded into Visual Knowledge Share (VKS), a digital work instruction platform. Production teams were heavily involved throughout, participating in studies, verification activities and validation processes. Quality engineers reviewed each SOP to ensure compliance with customer specifications and internal standards.
For customer-specific bogie builds completed in phase one, the team used customer internal digital documentation packages alongside customer specifications to determine the major processes required. Production operators participated in red pen validation sessions, marking up draft procedures with corrections and improvements before final approval.
The digital platform allowed operators to access the correct procedure for their specific customer and process step, with visual aids, torque specifications and quality checkpoints clearly displayed. This replaced the previous system of searching through multiple paper documents to find the right specification.
