Parts is Parts, Except When They Aren’t.

So Amtrak doesn’t have parts for its Siemens cars, and has to cancel trains. link here:
Parts Issues Lead to Amtrak Midwest Cancellations

Not unique to Siemens, or the rail industry.

At least it’s just trains being cancelled. Try explaining to a sewer plant that they’re one pump/VFD/PLC card failure away from having to dump raw/partially treated sewage, and the DEP doesn’t care.

And the replacement parts may be out three weeks, or three years. You can’t get a reliable date because nobody on your side of the chain can get an answer.

Allen Bradley is by far the worst- they’ll tell you three weeks, and a few days before, kick it out another few months. More fun: if you find the part you need elsewhere, guess what - they know where you got it from, and if you return it for repair, they won’t honor the warranty.

Don’t get me started on subscription software…

Nasadowsk wrote: ↑Sun Apr 14, 2024 12:38 pm Not unique to Siemens, or the rail industry.

At least it’s just trains being cancelled. Try explaining to a sewer plant that they’re one pump/VFD/PLC card failure away from having to dump raw/partially treated sewage, and the DEP doesn’t care.

And the replacement parts may be out three weeks, or three years. You can’t get a reliable date because nobody on your side of the chain can get an answer.

Gee, sounds like Baltimore's sewage system before the state took it over, which was actually fairly recent (past few years).

I won't be surprised if Siemens is screwing up Toyota style "vertical integration".

Trains buried the lede to throw shade on Siemens again...

If these are really parts needed for regular or routine maintenance, then the real issue here isn't availability from Siemens, but some purchasing manager at Amtrak deciding it was wastefull to keep the required quantity of a part in stock.

Yeah, I know there are supply chain issues, but if you can't keep a certain part in stock, take individual cars out of service to be part donors without needing to cancel entire trains...

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I see it all the time in the ag industry. A lot of it boils down to that even though one company is assembling a unit, whether it be a tractor, train, car, truck, whatever, the parts they're using to produce the machines are procured from hundreds to thousands of vendors.

Bulbs can be produced from one vendor, HVAC equipment another, transmission parts another, and so on and so on. You combine that with the business principals of stocking items (slow and fast moving items, fill rate, breadth... idle inventory costs money) along with global logistics and the constant turmoil of the world and you get situations where components are on back-order, and for lack of a better term, a dime holding up a dollar.

eolesen wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:35 am Trains buried the lede to throw shade on Siemens again...

If these are really parts needed for regular or routine maintenance, then the real issue here isn't availability from Siemens, but some purchasing manager at Amtrak deciding it was wastefull to keep the required quantity of a part in stock.

This.

(A) keep parts in stock. You can bet the PRR and even PC did. Why doesn't Amtrak keep them in stock?

(B) If you run a schedule that requires 300 passenger cars per day, should your fleet be 300? Or 350? How many can be bad ordered, how many can be in for overhaul, how many might die at outlying terminals and be parked for a week...

Tadman wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 2:40 pm

eolesen wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:35 am Trains buried the lede to throw shade on Siemens again...

If these are really parts needed for regular or routine maintenance, then the real issue here isn't availability from Siemens, but some purchasing manager at Amtrak deciding it was wastefull to keep the required quantity of a part in stock.

This.

(A) keep parts in stock. You can bet the PRR and even PC did. Why doesn't Amtrak keep them in stock?

(B) If you run a schedule that requires 300 passenger cars per day, should your fleet be 300? Or 350? How many can be bad ordered, how many can be in for overhaul, how many might die at outlying terminals and be parked for a week...

Anyone know how Brightline is handling parts for their gear?

Brightline is contracting with Siemens to provide maintenance (I presume this means that Siemens has penalties of some sort if a train is OOS for too long).

Don't have an accountant in charge of parts.
One of our suppliers accountant decided slow moving parts should be written off.
um yeah. New items don't need certain parts for a few years.
But in a few years those parts won't be obtainable.
Nowadays, in a matter of months.

Don't have a myopic accountant in charge of parts.

Any accountant with basic understanding of downtime knows what a gamble it is not to stock parts.

But as David notes, folks are apt to tighten their belts and that doesn't always work out. In our industry it's 6-8 weeks minimum for custom spares, could be 20 weeks.

Yup , great fun telling a customer their 100k motorhome is out of action for 3 months waiting for a $ 100 part.
With small electronic components , I find I can find and get them faster from Ali Express than the likes of didkey etc . even if it means spending $ 50 freight on a $ 1 item .

somethings gone badly wrong with the J.I.T supply chain.I've changed it to Just too late.

David Benton wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 5:18 pm Yup , great fun telling a customer their 100k motorhome is out of action for 3 months waiting for a $ 100 part.
With small electronic components , I find I can find and get them faster from Ali Express than the likes of didkey etc . even if it means spending $ 50 freight on a $ 1 item .

somethings gone badly wrong with the J.I.T supply chain.I've changed it to Just too late.

It's bad when you don't implement JIT supply chains right. Toyota did by maintaining a buffer supply.

Interestingly, pre-deregulation, the railways were a part of the JIT supply chain and gamed it to their advantage. Because regulation made it equal cost or cheaper to route things circuitously, sometimes bulk (esp lumber) from out west was shipped before a buyer was found. It was usually routed through Upper Michigan and over the Chief Wawatam and by the time the load made it to the eastern US, it had been sold and was rerouted and reblocked in somewhere like Saginaw.

This is why some companies still insist on tight vertical integration, and others are re-thinking their offshore supply dependencies.

IMO the only solution is for this ongoing parts problem has several items. A planned 40 year life with possibly extension has to be incorporated into all purchase contracts. All contracts to vendors must have provision that if vendor goes out of business for any reason including bankruptcy that all patents, drawings, tooling , etc will become property of Amtrak with tooling going a scrap prices. Another company picking up these items will also need thought. That also goes for replacements and upgrades.

That might require congressional legislation,