Inspections and preventive maintenance lead to total cost savings for rail company

Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) helps link production and consumption points in the U.S., and across the world, with a network to deliver the energy, food, raw materials, durable and consumer goods to support the nation’s growth.

The North Platte shop inspects, repairs and/or provides maintenance to UPRR locomotives 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Services include: change outs of power assemblies, traction motors, alternators, turbos, engine blowers and electrical equipment. They can perform these services on 12 locomotives at one time. North Platte averages six complete extensive locomotive inspections per week.

Their eight critical cranes, a variety of underhung and top running cranes ranging from 5-20 ton capacities, provide lifting assistance for major locomotive components during the repair and maintenance process of the cranes.

Due to a lack of standardized inspection practices, timing and content of inspections were inconsistent which resulted in unacceptable levels of crane reliability and safety standards.

 

Monthly crane service for safe and reliable operation

We provided and continue to provide a standardized monthly crane inspection and preventive maintenance program to help the equipment operate in both a safe and reliable manner. Konecranes inspectors and UPRR maintenance staff work in partnership to identify safety/productivity issues and create repair plans to eliminate deficiencies in a timely manner.

In addition, modernization recommendations are presented, when applicable, to increase the ergonomics for crane operators, speed up processes that require the use of the cranes and further increase the level of safety when the cranes are in use.

 

Significant reduction in emergency and planned repairs

As a direct result of our inspection/preventive maintenance partnership, the North Platte shop realized a 62% reduction in emergency repair costs and 64% reduction in planned repair cost from 2009 to 2010. Improved crane uptime led to total maintenance cost savings.

 

Learn more about our crane service programs

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