Case Studies

Advice & Consultancy Case Study

Comparisons between public sector rail operator and airline industry in regard to how complex contracts are run safely

A large public sector railway client, newly involved in large scale PFI-type contract management, was concerned that it was developing contract management processes in an unfamiliar area and which seemed to be getting unwieldy. We took the view that there were a number of industries that had many years experience in large scale contract management in a safety critical area and suggested that we ran a small project with some air industry experts in it to review the developing processes and show how the airline industry might have tackled the job.

It became apparent immediately that the airline industry achieved successful and fully auditable contract management with fewer staff than was proposed in this case. It was equally apparent that the air industry safety regime was very different from that of the UK rail industry and this partly facilitated the processes adopted in the air industry. While it was not possible simply to export air industry practice into UK rail it was apparent that UK rail had much to learn from a number of other industries and could profit from some cross-industry sharing of experience that could short-cut development time and reduce costs.

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