Dutch Railways: Predicting the Future

About Dutch Railways

For more than 175 years, Dutch Railways has been working to keep its trains safe and secure. It has grown to become an important partner for transport companies and owners of railway rolling stock, well beyond the borders of the Netherlands. From technical maintenance to fast service and from cleaning to short term maintenance and long term revision: Dutch Railways ensures that its 1.2 million train passengers arrive safely and in a clean train on their destination. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In order to meet its goals, Dutch Railways was looking for a complete software solution a few years ago. After careful consideration, IBM Maximo was chosen. Software that could monitor maintenance work, technical defects and deviations, timetables and costs.

OXplus was asked as partner for the implementation of the software and the related organizational changes and deliver results within a short time frame and set budget. A challenge that OXplus gladly incurred.

PREDICTING THE FUTURE.

The goal was to implement IBM Maximo within the budget, a certain timeframe and with the involvement of the entire organization. For these reasons, the Scrum Agile method was chosen. Hugo Mans explains: “This method, which divides the implementation process into multiple parts, was very important for achieving our goals. We build something, show the organization how it works, get feedback about it, make adjustments and present it again. By doing it this way, the organization plays an active role during the implementation and we assure that what we are making will also be really desirable. OXplus played an important role in this process: they helped us with the necessary mindset and process changes in the organization and placed key professionals in our scrum team. In addition, they helped us find the right device, the iPad, for our workplace monitors, where they can see all up-to-date information. With the good and professional help of OXplus, we have been able to implement the IBM Maximo within the cost and time frame, which is exceptional for a project of this size. ”

Further Developments

Now the implementation is complete, Dutch Railways will continue to work on upgrades and improvements of IBM Maximo. To continue these improvements, OXplus is still contributing to this at Dutch Railways. Currently, OXplus supports IBM Maximo’s knowledge and experience in the roles of a Solution Architect, Developer and a Tester.

OXplus also fulfills roles in the transition to agile working and the related organizational changes. These roles include an IT Manager and a Scrum Master. The combination of these roles and the substantive roles in the development team enable OXplus to help Dutch Railways take an additional step towards DevOps. The cooperation between Development and Operations will thus become more professional, resulting in a more efficient development process.