51

Life cycle cost procurement of Swedish State

Railways’ high-speed train X2000
H Akselsson
Swedish State Railways, Mechanical Engineering Division, Stockholm, Sweden
B Burstrom, MSc
ABB Traction AB,Rolling Stock Division, Vasteris, Sweden

After thorough investigations Swedish State Railways ( S J ) in 1981 decided to start the process of acquiring a high-speed train. It was
also decided that the life cycle cost technique should be used. This paper gives a short introduction to the life cycle cost technique and
describes the acquisition of the high-speed train from prestudy, through request ,for proposals, contracting, design and &finally oper-
ational verification. Some experience obtained from the supplier’s design work and from SJ’s initial operation of the system is also
outlined, as well as the outcome of the verifkation. The project has been a success, and both parties-SJ as customer and ABB as
supplier- are convinced that the use of life cycle cost methodology has greatly contributed to this.

1 INTRODUCTION 2.1 Life cycle cost model

After some 15 years of technical and economic investi- A very simple example shows what the figures can look
gations, it was decided in 1981 to start the process of like when two technically equivalent systems are com-
acquiring the high-speed train X2000. It was also pared: system B costs 50 per cent more but has 25 per
decided that the life cycle cost (LCC) technique should cent lower maintenance and operating costs than
be used. In this technique all relevant cost elements are system A.
taken into account and used to calculate the techno-
economic lifespan of the vehicle system. This lifespan A B
was fixed at 20 years, which is considered to be the ‘best
period’ of the complete system. It is necessary to allow a Acquisition cost 100.000 150.000
further 4 years for implementation and a number of Yearly maintenance cost 20.000 15.000
years for refurbishing/scrapping the vehicles. Yearlv cost of ooeration 20.000 15.000
If the lifesoan of the svstem is 10 years:
2 THE LIFE CYCLE COST TECHNIQUE A B
As mentioned in the Introduction, LCC means that the
Acquisition cost 1OO.OOO 150.000
total cost for the lifespan of a system is taken into con-
Maintenance cost 2fw).OOO 150.006
sideration. If the acquisition cost is omitted, the concept 200.000 15O.OOO
Cost of operation
is life support cost (LSC). It has been found that the
costs of acquisition, maintenance and operation of a Life cycle cost 500.000 450.000
railway vehicle system are each usually approximately
one third of the total (Fig. 1). This shows that it is Which system is best obviously depends on system life,
important to pay considerable attention to reliability and in this case system B, with a higher acquisition cost,
and maintainability performance. shows a lower LCC over 10 years. System A would
have been preferable only if the life of the system was
less than 5 years.
Other conditions also influence the calculation, and
this leads to a discussion of the calculation model, the
LCC model. A simple LCC model may cover
(a) acquisition cost;
(b) maintenance cost;
(c) cost of operation;
(d) extra costs.
The acquisition cost includes, of course, all the tech-
nical system and the vehicles, but also investment in
necessary maintenance equipment, documentation,
Acquisition training and spare parts and, if applicable, other
Fig. 1 Typical distribution of the main life cycle cost ele- project-related costs. The travelling costs vary greatly
ments for a train depending on whether a domestic or a foreign supplier
The M S was received on 16 December 1993 and was accepted for publication on (for example, at the extreme, a Japanese supplier) is
20 M a y 1994. chosen.
F01793 0 IMechE 1994 Proc lnstn Mech Engrs Vol 208
52 H AKSELSSON AND B BURSTROM
The costs of daily servicing and cleaning are normally
regarded as costs of operation, as are the cost of energy
consumed and the cost of driver and train crew.
Maintenance costs are divided into preventive main-
tenance, from weekly inspections to major recondition-
ing after 10 or 12 years, and corrective maintenance
(repairs). Because failures may have widely different
consequences for the operation, failures should be cate-
gorized, for example as follows:
(a) failures causing a stop on the line;
(b) failures causing an unplanned workshop visit;
(c) other failures.
Extra costs include standstill costs, arising when vehi-
cles are not available for operating owing to main-
tenance, or costs arising from traffic disturbances.
Sometimes passengers have to be transported by alter-
native means, and sometimes they have to be financially
compensated for cancelled trains or delays.
2.2 Acquisition process with the life cycle cost method
The main steps in the acquisition process are as follows :
establishment of the LCC model;
determination of the operational profile;
request for proposals;
evaluation and amplification of the proposals;
negotiations with tenderers;
contract with LCC guarantee;
modifications of the contract if necessary;
delivery ;
verification.
When establishing the LCC model it is wise to carry
out a prestudy on an existing system similar to the one
to be purchased. The reasons are usually:
(a) validation of the model;
(b) establishing a reference for reliability performance
requirements in the request for proposals, and also
for the reliability and LCC evaluation of tenders;
(c) training of the LCC team.
The operational profile must be clearly defined since
it forms an important basis for the system’s reliability
performance and need for maintenance.
The first evaluation of a tender normally reveals some
missing or incomprehensible data, so a clarification of
the proposal may be anticipated.
Negotiations should result in a contract including a
guaranteed LCC value and preferably also a guarantee
concerning reliability performance.
Any modification of the contract has to be done
according to an agreed change procedure. If such a pro-
cedure is not followed, there is an obvious risk that the
responsibility of each party will deteriorate, and the
main benefit of this way of contracting may be lost.
Verification of guarantees completes the process, and
if successful it terminates the supplier’s commitment as
to availability performance and LCC.
2.3 Request for proposal
When LCC is applied in the acquisition, the following
factors must be considered.
Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit
1. Principles of the LCC evaluation, for example the
fact that the evaluation is a combined technical and
economic effort. Missing data or the failure of the
tenderer to guarantee properties of the product
implied by the supplied data may be a reason for
rejection of the tender.
2. Supplier responsibility for availability performance.
An availability performance programme shall be
carried out, involving continuous analyses of alterna-
tive technical solutions during the engineering phase.
3. Expected guarantees from the supplier should be
stated.
4. Operational profile of the vehicles.
5. The present maintenance organization should be
described. If the tenderer identifies missing resources
or equipment, necessary for maintaining the offered
vehicles, this should be stated in the tender.
6. The LCC calculation model must be provided with
the request for proposals (RFP), giving all customer
parameters.
7. Computer software for the calculations should nor-
mally be provided by the customer. It is a great
advantage if both parties use the same software.
8. Data necessary for the evaluation, thus to be
included in a tender must of course be carefully
specified.
2.4 Life cycle cost data from supplier
Many data are needed for the calculations:
(a) investment in vehicles, etc.;
(b) material structure and spare parts list;
(c) preventive maintenance programme and workshop
resources needed;
(d) component maintenance and resources needed.
For calculation of corrective maintenance the follow-
ing data are needed:
(a) failure rates;
(b) repair times;
(c) classification of failures;
(d) workshop resources needed.
2.5 Customer’s calculations
The customer, of course, performs calculations accord-
ing to the LCC model and also uses previous experience
with other vehicles to estimate corrective maintenance,
preventive maintenance, component maintenance and
workshop resources.
Normally the tenderers are requested to give advice
as to a suitable supply of spare parts. Swedish State
Railways has also been using different computer models
for optimization of spares.
2.6 Contract
Among other things, of course, the contract will contain
rules for project realization, for example the change pro-
cedure, and guarantees. However, a guarantee is not
worth much unless its fulfilment can and will be verified.
How this will be done should have been outlined
already in the request for proposals, and a procedure
agreed on included in the contract.
@ IMechE 1994
 LIFE CYCLE COST PROCUREMENT OF SWEDISH STATE RAILWAYS' HIGH-SPEED TRAIN XZOOO
Guarantees should cover an LCC value that must not
be exceeded. Reliability and maintainability per-
formance guarantees are also desirable, for example
maximum number of stopping failures and unplanned
workshop visits and average or maximum repair time.
Besides these guarantees there is of course a tradi-
tional technical guarantee, which is not at all affected by
the other guarantees.
2.7 Design
When the contract is signed, the design of the vehicles
changes from the art of conceptual design, adopted
during the proposal phase, into a thorough and detailed
design. In this phase, about 80 per cent of the main-
tenance costs are incurred, thus sufficient effort should
be expended on designing good maintainability to
achieve a low LCC for the vehicles.
Systematic reliability work presupposes that the
design work is executed under conditions of collective
responsibility. If the trains/systems are to perform at
optimal reliability, the complete chain of subsystems,
including the maintenance system, must be integrated
and internally balanced so that a product of consistent
strength is obtained. This implies that parameters that
have a strong influence on reliability performance are
subject to an eMicient control.
During its development, the train goes through a
number of stages or phases, from the conceptual to the
commercially operational. During each stage reliability
and maintainability should be taken into consideration.
Much of the reliability work and associated activities
are repeated in the different design phases. The degree
of detail and the level of ambition of this work is depen-
dent on the phase and when the work is performed.
Examples of reliability activities which are important
in the design work include :
(a) specification of design preconditions together with
preconditions for operation and maintenance;
(b) specification of requirements and preconditions for
reliability performance;
(c) development of technical system solutions and esti-
mation of the impact of system faults on the service-
ability of the trains;
(d) analyses of reliability and maintainability per-
formance.
2.8 Verification
Verification is a wide concept, covering not only what is
related to LCC. The traditional predelivery verification
is of course still there, with scrutiny of drawings and
specifications, type testing of new components, inspec-
tions during the production phase, etc.
LCC verification implies that the vehicles are very
carefully followed up during a reasonable period of
normal operation. For the purpose of reliability per-
formance verification, all events are carefully reported
and logged, and customer and supplier together decide
whether or not any event is a relevant irregularity. The
supplier is of course responsible only for failures
resulting from the vehicle itself. Maintainability per-
formance (that is repair times) may be verified through
test repairs of a number of randomly chosen failure
modes. Verification of preventive maintenance actions
Q lMechE 1994
53
are rather expensive to perform, but the customer
should at least reserve the right to demand verification
of any data provided by the supplier.
Energy consumption ought to be verified, either theo-
retically or in practice, or both, because of its great
importance for the life cycle cost.
2.9 Benefits and possibilities of the life cycle cost method
The benefits for the customer are obvious. A much
better defined product is achieved already at the time of
contract signing, and the supplier is committed to do a
good job with emphasis on availability performance. All
relevant costs of different technical alternatives are cal-
culated, enabling the most favourable solution regard-
ing LCC to be chosen. If a low LCC is predicted and
subsequently verified. the customer will benefit from low
support costs for the entire life of the system.
However, the method also has advantages for the
supplier. An insight into the customer's intended use of
the product and the value placed on different costs is
obtained. The supplier also gets a tool for evaluation of
different technical solutions since availability per-
formance can be valued in economic terms. Finally, if
evidence of a thoroughly evaluated product can be
obtained, this can be used in marketing.
3 ACQUISITION OF THE HIGH-SPEED TRAIN
x2000
3.1 Life cycle cost prestudy performed by Swedish State
Railways
Swedish State Railways had no previous experience of
LCC modelling of railway rolling stock systems, so a
prestudy on an existing system similar to the high-speed
train was definitely necessary.
A dummy train was composed of data from electric
locomotives and coaches to include approximately the
right amount of traction equipment and interior fittings,
similar to the intended composition of the X2000.
In this way SJ first established a material structure
for this dummy train, and then relevant data at com-
ponent level were retrieved. The most important data
were failure rates, repair times, prices and information
on preventive maintenance. These were collected from
computer-stored data and interviews with workshop
staff.
An enormous number of work orders from work-
shops had to be reviewed to obtain the repair statistics.
Finally, the preventive maintenance schedules for the
vehicles were identified and edited in the LCC input
data file together with other typical SJ data, such as
labour rates at workshops, costs of transportation of
material, etc.
Several different calculations were performed:
(a) availability performance;
(b) optimization of spares;
(c) availability performance simulation;
(d) LCC calculation.
The availability performance analysis first of all produc-
ed input to the LCC calculation, such as failure rates
and repair times, but also made it possible to identify
the components most likely to fail or taking most time
Proc lnstn Mech Engrs Vol 208
54 H AKSELSSON AND B BURSTROM
to repair and components most likely to cause vehicle
unavailability.
The purpose of optimization of spares was of course
to identify how much money had to be invested in
spares in order to maintain an acceptable availability of
the vehicles.
The availability performance simulation was carried
out using an extensive computer program, developed
primarily for the X2000 project. The program, called
SIDRIX, takes into account, among other things :
(a) the trains’ timetable;
(b) availability performance characteristics of the vehi-
cles;
(c) workshop resources, such as working hours and dif-
ferent track facilities;
(d) number of spare vehicles;
(e) acceptable number of cancelled trains/week;
(f) time for exchange of a faulty coach or power car.
All these calculations increased the knowledge of the
behaviour of such a train system, and led to some
adjustments of the LCC model. SJ also decided not to
specify reliability requirements in the RFP, but to raise
the question in negotiations with the suppliers after the
tenders had been evaluated.
3.2 Invitation for tenders and first evaluation
The invitation for tenders was sent out in July 1982,
and tenders were received in February the following
year. None of the tenders fulfilled the requirements,
either technically or with regard to acceptance of guar-
antee commitments concerning availability performance
and LCC. Thus all tenders had to be rejected, and a
modified invitation for tenders had to be prepared. New
tenders were received in December, and a second evalu-
ation started.
3.3 Second evaluation of tenders
The second time around several tenders were much
better regarding availability performance and main-
tenance. However, guarantees seemed to be hard to
obtain since tenderers preferred to characterize their
data as ‘estimated’ or ‘calculated’. This ‘uncertainty’
from tenderers meant that some sensitivity analyses had
to be carried out, evaluating what the impact would be
if the tenderer had, for example, underestimated all
failure rates and preventive maintenance by a certain
percentage.
3.4 Further invitation for tenders and evaluation
The findings of the second tender evaluation and a com-
mercial study led to some changes in the train outline.
The concept finally included one power car, four inter-
mediate cars and one driving trailer. A further invita-
tion for tenders was sent out in April 1985, with replies
received 1 month later.
With only one driving unit it was necessary to intro-
duce asynchronous motors if desired travelling times
were still to be achieved. The asynchronous motor is
more powerful than traditional motors of the same size.
The whole battery of calculations was repeated. At
this stage calculations of a system designed for the
Part F : Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit
Stockholm-Gothenburg and Stockholm-Malmo lines
were performed. The timetable included about 3000
single tours a year, corresponding to a little more than
15 million train-kilometres. This was expected to be
carried out with 36 trains plus three spare trains. The
availability performance simulation showed, however,
that as many as 12 spare trains might be needed, and
that would of course be unacceptable. This led to many
questions and discussions. Could the time for exchange
of a faulty coach be decreased? Would it be possible to
do more repairs at service platforms nearby the stations
instead of taking the train to a workshop? Eventually,
the requirement for spare trains was reduced, and the
results of the different evaluations showed that an
acceptable solution could be within reach.
3.5 Contract
The formal negotiations started in November 1985.
Finally, after many time-consuming negotiations, a con-
tract was signed on 29 August 1986. Delivery was to
encompass 20 trainsets, spare vehicles corresponding to
two reduced trainsets, maintenance equipment, docu-
mentation and spare parts.
The contract included guarantees concerning both
reliability performance and LCC :
1. The number of stopping failures should not exceed
12 per million kilometres, the definition of this being
a stop on the line for more than 15 mins without
possible restart. (Contractual status had indicated
about 11 stopping failures per million kilometres.)
2. The number of faults causing an unplanned work-
shop visit directly after arrival at the end station
should not exceed 750. (Contractual status had indi-
cated about 450.)
3. The LCC value as calculated according to the agreed
LCC model should not be exceeded by more than 10
per cent.
Guarantees are not worth much, unless a procedure for
verification of their fulfilment is agreed upon. Thus the
contract stated that the contractor had an undertaking
to conduct verification of reliability, maintainability and
LCC.
The contract also included a contractor commitment
to carry out an availability performance programme
(APP). This means that during the engineering phase
continuous analyses concerning reliability performance
and maintainability performance should be carried out,
and their impact on LCC assessed.
The APP also included a maintenance analysis to be
carried out in six steps, gradually refined concurrently
with approval of the vehicle design. The maintenance
analysis should cover :
(a) necessary maintenance equipment;
(b) necessary manpower;
(c) necessary standstill time for actions;
(d) consumption of spares;
(e) necessary documentation ;
(f) necessary training.
One outcome of the maintenance analysis was the
balance between preventive and corrective maintenance.
The proportions of the predicted necessary labour
@ lMechE 1994
 LIFE CYCLE COST PROCUREMENT OF SWEDISH STATE RAILWAYS’ HIGH-SPEED TRAIN X2OoO
requirements are 78 per cent for preventive maintenance
and 22 per cent for corrective maintenance.
4 DESIGN PERFORMED BY ABB TRACTION
In view of the strict reliability and LCC requirements
stated in the contract, a prerequisite for a successful
project result was an integration of LCC and reliability
considerations into the train design process.
It was soon found that this was most efficiently done
by ensuring a high degree of participation from the
system designers. Thus, the LCC work was led by a
small group of experienced reliability engineers with
overall responsibility for the elTort. However, a large
portion of the system-specific reliability work was done
by the system designers as part of their normal duties.
This had the advantage of making the overall effort
manageable while at the same time the technical com-
petence of the designers was efficiently used. When
systems or equipment were designed and/or produced
by subsuppliers, a similar approach was chosen, that is
the analysis requirements were transferred to the sub-
supplier as part of the purchasing specification.
Obviously, this decentralized analysis approach led to
a number of additional tasks for the reliability group,
for example:
1. Education: The effort started with the education of
all key system designers, in order to make them
aware of the design implications of the requirements
posed in the contract, and to give them the necessary
basic training in reliability techniques.
2. Coordination: The efforts of the various designers
and subsuppliers had to be coordinated with respect
to working methods, scope and results.
3. Response: In order to keep system designers and
subsuppliers motivated, quick response to the input
supplied was important.
4. Reliability subgoals : All contracted guarantees were
given on the train level. However, in order to ensure
efficient design management, system subgoals were
defined and applied in all system evaluations. In this
manner, it was possible both to spot problems and to
direct corrective action.
5. Design management: In most cases, the designers
were not supposed to make any formal reliability
analyses by themselves. Instead, a set of rules of
thumb were developed, that is general rules to be
considered and applied in detailed system design.
The rules of thumb were formulated early in the
project, and played an important role in design man-
agement, for example.
(a) Use of redundancies. Redundancies were eco-
nomically motivated only in a few specific cases.
Mostly, cost reduction as a result of improved
reliability could not compensate for the radically
increased volume of corrective and preventive
maintenance.
(b) Design complexity. In this case, the rule was
simply ‘Keep it simple !’, meaning that extrava-
gance should be avoided because of high costs,
for example of spares, maintenance equipment,
failure localization, component exchange.
(c) Maintainability. Improved maintainability (that
is good access to equipment, short times for
Q IMechE 1994
55
failure localization and exchange of equipment,
etc.) is cheap and efficient, especially if considered
early. Among other things, this has led to exten-
sive use of modularization, resulting in short
train outage times.
(d) Find the cost drivers! The design was continually
evaluated in order to kccp track of cost drivers,
that is components with high failure rate and/or
maintenance volume.
The chairs are a good example of how this procedure
worked to pin-point problem areas. In preliminary
analyses, the chair design considered was found to have
an expected failure rate much in excess of the expected
(that is of the system reliability goal). A design change
was initiated, resulting in a considerable reduction.
The LCC work within the design phase required con-
siderable resources, both from the reliability group and
from the system designers. However, since much of the
work invested will be reusable within future projects,
this must be considered a worthwhile investment.
4.1 Theoretical design verification
To verify theoretically during the design phase that the
design would meet the reliability demands, an LCC
computer model of the train was continually updated as
the design proceeded, resulting in several interim
reports, showing the ‘current LCC status’ (see Fig. 2).
For each piece of equipment in the model about 10 dif-
ferent parameters important to the LCC were included.
The predicted LCC values were compared with those
stated in the contract, calculated from a contractual
Contractual status
+
_ _
Version 1 Version 2 Version 3 Version 18
\ 86-08-29 92-01-20 1
Current status Final status \ ,
vwwon 1 Version 2 Version 3 Version 4
86-08 29
Verified failure rate
Prrdicted failure rate
Verified MTTR
Predicted MTTR
Final slalub Vcr1fied status
92 07 20
Fig. 2 Overview of the LCC work from contract to finished
verification
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 208
56
(somewhat simplified) model of the train. As changes to
the contract were agreed upon, that is changes affecting
the LCC, the contractual model was also revised,
issuing a new ‘contractual status’ for comparison. The
contract demanded that the LCC value of the ‘final
status’, should not exceed the LCC value calculated
from the contractual status at the same moment. This
demand was met.
5 EXPERIENCE FROM OPERATION AND
MAINTENANCE
Commercial operation was started in September 1990
between Stockholm and Gothenburg with only one
trainset delivered, 5 months before delivery of trainset
no. 2. In spite of the lack of spare trains, only one can-
celled train was registered, and that was caused at the
depot by an incorrect positioning of an emergency
brake handle.
In October 1993, 17 trainsets had been delivered (plus
two spare units of each power car, driving trailer, buffet
and intermediate car), operating on six routes with a
weekly number of turn and return journeys as follows :
(Uppsala-) Stockholm-Gothenburg 43
Stockholm-Skovde 34
Stockholm-Linhoping (-Nassjo) 22
Stockholm-Borlange-Falun 17
Stockholm-Jonkoping 6
Stockholm-Karlstad 6 (b) 100 unplanned workshop visits per million kilo-
5.1 Contractual verification
The contractual verification includes verification of reli-
ability performance guarantees, as well as verification of
a guaranteed LCC value. Since failure rates and repair
times greatly influence the overall cost, both these
parameters were to be verified, although they were not
individually guaranteed, only their overall impact (see
Fig. 3).
The reliability performance verification was carried
out at the start of operation of the system. It was to
start at delivery of trainset no. 3, and nominally con-
tinue for 6 months. If the guaranteed reliability could
Verification of reliability parameters
Stopping failures
Verification of maintainability
Fig. 3 Overview of the performance of the verificatioon. Bold ovals indicate
guaranteed values.
Par1 F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit
H AKSELSSON AND B BURSTROM
not be verified at the end of these 6 months, the verifica-
tion period was to be postponed for 2 months at a time
until the guaranteed reliability was obtained.
In the worst case, if guaranteed reliability could not
be achieved even after several modifications and dis-
placements of the verification period, a financial penalty
in form of compensation would be imposed.
Verification of repair times was carried out simulta-
neously with the reliability verification, enabling a cal-
culation of verified LCC at the end of that period.
5.1.1 Reliability performance ver8cation
A special form was established for reporting all events
that occurred during the verification period. Both train
crew and workshop personnel were instructed to report
as soon as anything exceptional was observed, or any
repair was carried w t .
When the agreed mitiirnum verification period hid
come to an end. two points were clear: the veh1c:le.i h,i
travelled enough kilometres to ell -Ire cvnfidxc- 11 the
statistics and a preliminary eva!untior; indicaied that
the outcome of the verification was likely to be suc-
cessful. Thus the report;rrg could be stopped, and when
all necessary informatLn had been collected rhe evalu-
ation was finalized. The results worc 9s follows:
(a) 1.7 stopping failures per million kilometres;
metres.
5.1.2 Maintainability performance veriJication
Fifty randomly chosen failures were test repaired and
the repair times registered. Twenty-five failures were
chosen from the reports of real failures that had
occurred, and the remaining 25 from the equipment
stated in the final status database. A mean time to
repair (MTTR) was calculated from the predicted repair
times for these test objects and compared with the
MTTR calculated from verified repair times. The quo-
tient between verified and predicted value should form a
correction factor for all repair times in the database,
General relevant
Correction factor Verified LCC
@ IMechE 1994
 LIFE CYCLE COST PROCUREMENT OF SWEDISH STATE RAILWAYS HIGH-SPEED TRAIN X2000 57

as experienced during the reliability performance verifi-

cation and the verified mean time to repair.
The total failure rate turned out to be about the same
as the predicted value, while MTTR was 55 per cent of
predicted value. With these verified figures replacing the
--+---t--.
..........
predicted ones in the LCC model, a verified LCC value
was calculated, and shown to be 94 per cent of con-
tracted level and 85 per cent of guaranteed level (Fig. 5).

5.2 Additional results from operation and verification

0 I
0 10 20 30 40
Number of tests carried out
Fig. 4 Correction factor for MTTR as the number of tests
carried out increased
thus establishing a verified MTTR value.
50
1 (Quant x failure rate x MTTR,,,)
E< = n5=t
(Quant x failure rate x MTTR,,,)
n= 1
Result
The correction factor was calculated to be 0.55, that is
the verified repair times were only 55 per cent of the
predicted.
When the correction factor was calculated each day
as an accumulated value it could be seen that the value
stabilized when only half the tests had been carried out
(Fig. 4). This indicated a high level of confidence in the
result. Any further test repairs would not have signifi-
cantly changed the correction factor.
5.1.3 Life cycle cost
The requirement on the LCC value was that verified
LCC should not exceed a limit defined as a 10 per cent
increase in contractual LCC.
The verified parameters to be entered into the calcu-
lation of a verified LCC value were the total failure rate
All event reports were continuously reviewed by both
50
parties’ verification leaders, and classified as ‘relevant’
or ‘not relevant’. An event was regarded as irrelevant if
the system was used beyond specification, incorrectly
handled, or if the failure was a secondary failure or con-
cerned equipment not within delivery.
The routine regarding event reports was prepared in
plenty of time for being introduced on the very first
trainset taken into operation in September 1990. This
meant that development of the failure rate could uni-
formly be studied from the beginning. The curve in Fig.
6 shows what could be identified as the beginning of a
bathtub curve, but the downward trend is not caused
merely by burning in. Instead it is the result of several
improvements that have successively been introduced.
A chart of failure rates (Fig. 7), predicted and verified,
of different subsystems shows that exterior equipment,
catering, water, bogies and brakes performed somewhat
worse than expected, while interiors, doors, the tilting
system, information system and air supply performed
better than expected.
The failure rate development was also followed up
continuously for each subsystem so that any alarming
trend could immediately be identified.
5.3 Maintenance
When commercial operation was started with only one
trainset it was obvious that traffic was very vulnerable
to any disturbance. Moreover, it was realized that pre-
ventive maintenance had to be carried out at night. To
minimize this, the overhaul process was split up into
small parts, each one short enough to be easily carried

0.25

Contractual LCC limit Predicted Verified

Fig. 5 Comparison between the contractual LCC value, the LCC limit, the
predicted value and the verified value
@ IMechE 1994 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 208
58 H AKSELSSON AND B BURSTROM

Relevant events

Required level

_ _ _ _ _ - Predicted level

I Verification period

out within the normal service pauses of the vehicles.
The system was called SPLIT. The prerequisites for
such a system to work properly are a computer system
to keep a record of all different actions on a large
number of vehicles and a well-defined responsibility for
the complete maintenance.
6 LESSONS LEARNED
Life cycle cost is a means of ensuring that the product
delivered is custom designed, and not only with respect
to technical performance. Attention is drawn also to the
customer's requirements regarding total costs, avail-
ability performance, maintenance and other critical
properties. This proved to be an efficient method, since
all the agreed warranties concerning vehicle costs and
availability performance were met.
As to the verification, it is now proven that
1. It is possible to achieve sufficient reporting.
2. Introducing improvements after delivery has in this
case proven to be time-consuming and expensive.
3. It is a lot of work, with more than 10000 event
reports to deal with.
Both SJ and the supplier ABB are convinced that every-
one has gained a lot from using the LCC method in the

Verified
0.8
O.:i
0 Predicted

r
O-*hIl
0.1
0

Fig. 7 Relative failure rates on system level, with the systems exceeding the
prediction furthest to the left
Part F: Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit 0 IMechE 1994
 LIFE CYCLE COST PROCUREMENT OF SWEDISH STATE RAILWAYS' HIGH-SPEED TRAIN X2000
X2000 acquisition. By continuous and systematic
analyses throughout the whole process, from contract to
verification, the result is a very reliable train. There is
no doubt that lower failure rates and shorter repair
times have been achieved than would otherwise have
been the case, and that has also been the means to
control the LCC.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Bmtrom, B., Kjellsson, U., Ericsson, G. and Knochenhauer, M. Reli-
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Q IMechE 1994
59
ceedings of the annual symposium on Reiiabilit): and
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Ericsson, G., Kjellsson, U. and Jonsson, M. Organizing for high avail-
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