CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
21 August 2007
Implementation Investments
MARTA Reports Major Time Savings From Use of Bentley Optram
Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is reporting major time savings from its deployment of the Bentley Optram decision-support system for rail corridor maintenance planning and operations.
To date, Bentley Optram has enabled MARTA to reduce by more than 70 percent the time it spends analyzing automated track geometry and exceptions and verifying track exceptions or defects. In recognition of these and other savings from its use of Bentley Optram, MARTA received a BE Award of Excellence for "Best Return on Innovation" from Bentley COO Malcolm Walter at the recent BE Conference in London.
MARTA's Track and Structures division began relying on the Bentley Optram solution for rail condition analysis and planning last year. The system interoperates directly with MARTA's enterprise asset management system to automatically generate work orders and capture progress, history, and cost information for reuse in future decision making. With the ability to practice proactive maintenance, MARTA Track and Structures division foresees dramatic reductions in maintenance and renewal costs as well as track defects.
Said Tim Elsberry, acting assistant director of MARTA's Track and Structures division, "In the maintenance industry, it's well documented that reactive maintenance costs two to four times more than proactive maintenance. By having advanced planning tools and functions, maintenance organizations can reduce reactive work and increase planned outage time. Whereas reactive maintenance is often the result of a failure or downtime, planned maintenance is performed in the off-peak hours and minimizes the impact on customers.
"Bentley Optram provides the Track and Structures team with powerful planning tools and allows us to address conditions proactively. We foresee achieving a 20 percent reduction in maintenance and renewal costs."
The Bentley Optram product suite provides track managers with a concise view of the rail infrastructure through digital track charts, rail assets, and attributes, and it combines information regarding system performance and maintenance activity over time. The Track and Structures division has been able to eliminate manual tasks that provide no value-add and improve work processes by converting data into quality information.
Bentley Optram was put into place as part of Phase I of MARTA's Business Transformation Program (BTP), launched in October 2006. The BTP, which encompasses a reengineering of business processes and operations, along with the replacement of multiple legacy information technology systems, is slated for completion in 2008.
Phase I of BTP implemented a highly integrated system involving components of Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, MAXIMUS Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software, and the Bentley Optram product suite. This initial phase was delivered on time and on budget. The integrated system streamlines business processes and provides higher productivity and increased efficiencies.
Tightly integrated with MAXIMUS via its EAM Interface, the Bentley Optram product suite provides a visual reference as to where work is scheduled and has been performed. The system also interfaces with track geometry information, providing the ability to visualize all channels of the rail telemetry data - a previously unrecognized capability. Allowing for proactive maintenance decisions, the system increases safety and reliability, and ultimately improves the ridership experience for MARTA's rail customers.
For more information about Bentley Optram, go to http://www.bentley.com/optram .
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