UK’s Rail Supply Group launches Work Pipeline Visibility Charter

The UK’s Rail Supply Group (RSG) has launched a new industry-wide initiative, a Work Pipeline Visibility Charter, which has been backed by Network Rail, HS2 Ltd, the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

The RSG Charter is aimed at businesses across the UK that supply services or products to the rail sector. As signatories of the charter, businesses will be giving their commitment to sharing their work pipeline information with their suppliers.

RSG is asking businesses supplying the rail industry – including infrastructure contractors, technology suppliers, consultancies, original equipment manufacturers, project management companies and small and medium enterprise (SME) specialist suppliers – to commit to the Rail Supply Group’s Work Pipeline Visibility Charter by agreeing that: “We will provide work pipeline visibility across the supply chain to allow our suppliers to plan and invest with confidence, driving improvements in productivity, collaboration, and delivery of outcomes.”

In-depth research undertaken earlier in 2021 on eight pilot projects with 28 participants from the UK’s rail industry was led by the Rail Supply Group’s Sustainable Industry Champion and CEO of Keltbray, Darren James. The research concluded that, by making work pipelines visible to suppliers, businesses would see significant improvements in productivity, since suppliers would have sufficient time to plan the delivery of work more efficiently and, of equal importance, committing to sharing project work pipelines down through the supply chain was identified as a vehicle to increase collaboration and trust.

Darren James, Keltbray’s CEO and RSG’s Work Pipeline Charter lead, said: “This is your call to action. Today and over the coming weeks, we are asking businesses supplying the rail sector to sign the Work Pipeline Visibility Charter, and we ask that you are proactive in your commitment and use our branding to publicise the fact that your business is committed to creating a more transparent and collaborative working culture for the benefit of our entire industry. This is one step along the way towards increasing work pipeline visibility across the industry and hard wiring this to a step change in productivity and lower carbon solutions.”

Anna Delvecchio from Mott MacDonald said: “Providing more visibility enables the forward planning horizon to be increased, thereby increasing productivity. It means that sub-optimal resource planning and material scheduling issues are exposed earlier so action that can be taken.”

Rob Morris of Siemens Mobility commented: “The availability of work pipeline information helps to improve staff utilisation and reduce avoidable project constraints due to scarce resources.”

Neil Robertson from the National Skill Academy for Rail said: “Providing certainty on work profile allows for a short-term ‘return on investment’ from staff retention to help to maintain the ongoing availability of staff to continue working in the rail sector.”