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Connor Fairhurst, host of Rail Technology Magazine's Track Talk podcast, spoke with Monica Barbosa, Head of Account Development at RSS Infrastructure, on episode 30 of the podcast.
This episode is a part of our exclusive 'Supply Chain Matters' podcast. A series of interviews in association with TransCityRail - The UK's leading regional event series for the rail industry. Supply Chain Matters gives SMEs in the industry the opportunity to discuss how, as a key supplier, they are collaborating with the rail industry and the impact this is having.
Monica spoke on RSS's Integrated Infrastructure Solutions, the importance of safety in the rail industry in terms of both employee safety and mental health care, and how RSS is leading the way in supporting Network Rail's Safety Task Force.
Monica went on to say how important supply chain collaboration is, how SMEs always have the potential and motivation to innovate, and how free tools like the supply chain school for SMEs are available.
Welcome to the Rail Technology Magazine Podcast. Keeping you up-to-date with the most current rail industry news, giving you an all-access pass to the key insights and innovations helmed by the decision makers in our industry
You're listening to Technology Magazine's
Track Talk podcast to guide you
through the news, use and inside stories
from across the rail industry.
Welcome to this episode of Rail Technology
Magazines Track Talk podcast.
Where today
we'll be discussing all things supply chain
and the importance of collaboration
within the rail industry.
We'll be joined
by Monica Barbosa, Head of Account
Development at RSS infrastructure.
Could you talk us
through your role with RSS
and how important is the work of RSS
in delivering the big projects in rail
at the minute?
I think RSS has a significant role
to play in delivering the big projects
in rail due to the variety that we have of services
that we can provide for clients.
So we have a wide range of integrated
infrastructure
solutions,
whether it's construction civils,
magnetic track safety
solutions, overhead line electrification,
safety critical resource and recruitment
signaling, the track warning systems we do.
The vegetation management
or even our welding services
so we have the whole package here
that we're able to deliver
for our customers and our clients
across the country as well.
And what projects are in the pipeline
for RSS at the minute?
And what will your role be in them?
Yeah, at the moment we're really proud
actually to be on a number
of frameworks for Network Rail
as well as Transport for Wales,
and we supporting them in all aspects
of our services that we have.
So we're very proud
to be doing that across the board
and across the United Kingdom.
In terms of rail safety.
What do you think we need to pay attention
to in the industry at the minute
and what technological advancements
in safety are you excited about?
So as you know and as everyone know in
our industry, safety is imperative.
It's a top thing
and it's the top concern that we have.
We all want to get everybody home safe
every day.
It's the key message
we give to all of our staff
and all of our suppliers.
Here at RSS we're actually leading the way
in supporting the work of the Safety
Taskforce Group Network Rail
in transitioning from unassisted lookouts
to technological based warning systems.
So there are several advantages
of using the track warning system instead
of traditional methods, which you know,
Nick Millington is heading up as he's
the safety director for the Network
Rail Safety Taskforce Group.
We're looking at reducing
and ultimately phasing it out.
So some of the advantages
you have with having a track
warning system
is that it reduces fatalities and injuries
by automatically alerting the workers
to trains approaching the work site.
It also.
One thing that's really key,
it actually allows work and critical
maintenance
to be carried out during daylight hours,
which is statistically proven
to be more efficient.
And it actually reduces
fatigue concerns from night working,
you know, especially as 003,
the fatigue risk management
standard for Network Rail is coming out
and it's
you know, the track warning system
is able to support the reduction.
We all know it's just unsustainable.
For us to just work weekends or just work
nights, not just in regards
around fatigue, but also for people
and then type of work life balance.
And so by giving them the opportunity
to do critical maintenance and works
during daylight hours,
it gives them more of a Work-Life Balance,
which is really key as well.
And keeping them safe,
which is imperative for us.
And how
will this work at RSS benefit passengers
and ultimately upgrade
the passenger experience
across the network?
Yes, it does help passengers
so everybody wins in that sense
by using that.
We also we're actually
we've got a magnetic fencing solution.
So we were the first company
to actually introduce magnetic fencing
barriers to the UK market.
You can actually put 100 meters up in
and install it in under 10 minutes.
So it saves you time as well
because you want people to be efficient.
You want us to just get the work done
and obviously keep everyone safe.
Minimal disruption
to all of the passengers
and the infrastructure in general, as well
as, you know,
keeping our infrastructure up to date
and not waiting until last minute
when something actually big goes wrong.
And we have to put posession
in cancel trains and obviously
annoy a lot of the passengers
who are at the end of the day,
the taxpayers and the ultimate user.
And do you find that
the wider rail industry supportive of SMEs
like yourselves
at RSS and the supply chain as a whole?
Yeah, I think they are.
And we got a lot of support obviously
from Nick Millington and his team.
They are really supporting us
and they want to move forward
with obviously the track warning systems
and we all want to get rid of
unassisted lookouts
because there is that concern there
and it is the ultimate you know,
ultimately they want to phase out
and we're all happy to support them,
especially here at RSS,
we're and SME company
we have so many different services,
but the track warning system is just
our added benefit because we do believe
how we know how important safety is here.
And our Head of HSQE , Dave
White, has drilled that into us
and all of the teams here,
whether you work in the office
or whether you're out on track,
we all believe in that as well.
We rail industry family
and that's something that's key for us.
Now something you touched on
earlier was workforce safety.
But in that regard,
what things are the rail industry
doing to help support the mental health
of its workforce?
Yeah, we have a lot
of mental health days over here.
We know it's, you know,
everybody knows it's very important
topic, you know, the health
and wellbeing of your staff is key.
And, you know, putting yourself out there,
they're the ones delivering the work
for you, their client facing as well
they're the ones who are your best key
to winning more work as well.
So we try and look after our staff
as much as we physically can.
We give back as well.
So we're actually we raise money for
places like the Railway Children as well.
We all work together.
We do a lot of charitable work ourselves
and try and volunteer.
We work with that Free at last.
It's a community center
down the road from us in Aston,
and we try and support them
as much as possible
when our teams go out there as well.
We're not only doing it, you know,
it does actually feel good to help
other people and actually support
other people and support our community.
That's really key for us here.
We do believe in supporting our community
here in Birmingham.
And how important is collaboration
would you say, within the supply chain.
As an industry
You'll probably know as well.
We've all shown,
you know, fantastic capability
to deliver major rail projects
over the years, and it's predominately
because of our supply chain
and the way we all collaborate together,
whether you're Network Rail,
whether you're an SME like RSS
here at RSS, we don't only collaborate
with our client, but we also collaborate
with our supply chain,
you know, very SME's
we all know we're able to provide
local knowledge, local laborers well,
and they also have the ability
and willingness to innovate,
which is really, really key.
There is a lot of different, you know,
as SMEs, we're always looking at cost.
And so there are a lot of free resources
out there,
which I just wanted to talk about SMEs,
which they can use.
Like there's the supply chain school,
which is absolutely brilliant.
It's a free resource
available to everybody.
And we're actually currently
at the silver level
and we're planning
to work our way up to gold.
But it is really useful.
I would advise anybody to go out
and get it.
Also, you know, we work alongside
the Armed Forces Covenant
We're a gold member of the
Armed Forces Covenant.
It helps military personnel to transition
from being part of the military
into civilian life.
And all of their skills
are really transferable to our industry.
So I would advise a lot of SMEs
to go and support that we're happy
to support as a gold member.
we can support people to get into
the armed forces covenant as well.
I really do think that it is all about,
you know,
we haven't got all the ideas in the world
in one companies about us
collaborating together,
working with a supply chain,
whether it's fellow SMEs or Tier
one clients or tier two clients,
you know, we work it all.
So in particular, we actually work
with our customers in our supply chain
to introduce innovative technology
to actually support the government
and network rules decarbonization policy.
So we have electric power plant,
we have most of our vehicles
are electric vehicles
and we have solar panels
in all of our properties that we have.
So we're in Doncaster, Birmingham,
and we've seen Cwmbran in Wales.
We have zero to landfill as well
because obviously theres always stuff left over.
So we try and keep up to date with that
and we work with our customers
and our supply chain to ensure
that we're adhering to all of that
and making all of this
innovative technology work for us.
What people fail to understand
is sometimes people
are constantly in competition with each other
and I really don't agree with that.
We're a railway family in my mind.
We should all be working together.
We should be working collaboratively
to win work and, you know, to give
the best
that we can to not only Network Rail,
but also the end users, which are the
passengers because they are the taxpayers.
They're the people paying for this.
We want them to have the best experience
they can.
We don't want the negative headlines
about trains late again.
It's all due to,
you know, an infrastructure failing
or whatever they choose to say.
We want to be able to have good news
stories about our industry.
You know,
we should be more concerned about
industries such as aviation and aerospace.
You know, we have
we have a really good relationship
with the government
and we're doing a great job
to get the amount of funding that we do.
And we have to keep going forth
with that.
Working collaboratively and delivering
for the end customer and the taxpayers is
what's the most important, I think.
And it shows that we are functioning
as a team and that's what we are.
We are this big team working together.
How important do you think it is
that the industry is also mindful
of the communities with which it works,
like you mentioned, the importance
of having local knowledge earlier
How essential do you think that is?
Yeah,
I think it so essential and you see it
with all the HS2 contracts
coming out and Network Rail as well.
And they're trying to push that subject.
We've always done it here.
So our CEO
Richard Toy and MD, Sean Harrison,
it's been one of their driving forces
to actually improve
the community here
as well as obviously apprentices as well.
So apprentices are the key to the future.
Let's just be honest.
And the future workforce
will surround them as we are.
Unfortunately, we do have an aging
workforce in the railway industry.
So we've actually been running
apprenticeships for around five years now.
We have over 20 apprentices
in all of our different disciplines.
Whether it's welding or OLE
or signaling
or track warning, civils and construction
elements.
Possession management
we have it in all of the different labor
resourcing as well.
We have
different
skills that we're trying to bring in
and allowing these young people
to take advantage of it as well.
So we try and support them very heavily.
We actually have our own training school
here called InfraSkills,
so we support not only ourselves
and ensure that everybody is competent
and we're bringing more young people in, but
we also support the industry in general.
I think since we've started InfraSkills, we had over
a thousand male recruits into rail,
so I like to call them greens.
New people who have never been
never known the rail industry
or the railway family,
and we brought them in so we just
like they've invested
an incredible amount of money
to make this beautiful facility here
with about five, six classrooms.
It was actually opened by the HS2
Minister Andrew Stephenson
last year, and he found it so impressive.
We have our own little track
down there as well.
So they get a feel for the railway
environment without being in it.
And how successful
have you found these apprenticeship
schemes to be?
Brilliant. They're so eager to learn as well,
and that's so key for us.
And we bring them up,
we give them our values as well
because we believe in safety,
giving back to the community giving to the client
that very they've got
what are values, core values
on what Richard and Sean have tried
to implement across the business as well.
And they really have done an amazing job
of it.
Being part of the Armed Forces Covenant
is obviously a huge thing for yourselves
at RSS
but how key do you think is it
the rail industry
looks to tap into over areas of work
to find people with transferable skills?
Yeah, I think
there's a sensational amount of skills.
And I think when you leave the Army,
it probably can be quite overwhelming.
Like everything is when you leave a role
that you're so used to doing.
So if you work always in banking
and you leave to go to railway, it's
going to be quite a shock to the system.
But they have these skills,
you know, whether it's timekeeping,
you know, timing is very important
on our railway
you can't even be one minute late,
otherwise the whole job can go under or,
you know, they start without you
because time is the key for all of us.
They're obviously very determined
people as well.
And that's the type of people we want.
We want people to want to learn
and want to get more knowledge.
And thats the tyoe of people you do
get through the military personnel.
And I think it's just so important
for us to be
a part of the Armed Forces Covenant.
And we're very, very proud to be a
gold member and a gold level
Richard and Sean are
very keen on the Armed Forces Covenant.
And we actually support the armed forces
anyway.
We go out, we support them
when they're selling their poppies
and things like that.
So we're very passionate here
about giving back in every type of way.
You know,
we know how lucky we all have been.
We're all very lucky people.
So it's all about giving back to
your community and giving back to society.
We know that it's very, very important.
The social value of any company
and corporate, it's your corporate social
is your corporate responsibility
really to be doing that
Finally,
For me,
we've seen a lot of investment recently,
in rail in the North and Midlands.
And how excited are you about on
the future planned projects in these regions?
Yet so happy to see that, to be honest.
And all the funding going up towards
the Midlands in the North, you know,
so important because of what past policy
there have been.
I think the North and the Midlands
probably have felt quite neglected
and feels like all the money's
going to London when that's not the case.
They're investing heavily
in whether it's the new tram systems.
We work very closely
with the Midlandsl Metro,
so we did help support that.
So it's about them
investing more in the North
and the Midlands
to provide a better service here.
And where we have we're in the middle of
Birmingham, we're ready to support really
Ive used both train services
and I can see a difference.
I'm from the South, so I can see
the slight yes, quite big difference.
And you know, it is proud for us.
I go out on site with the guys and I'm
quite proud of the work that we're doing
and delivering, honestly
I think it's great that they say to me
I'm just doing my job
because that's how incredible
these people are in my mind
and being an SME
we all know each other.
You know, whether there's 100
odd of us, you know,
we all still know each other.
And that's what I like about working
in RSS an SME, you have that family
value family aspect,
which I think is great.
And I think the tier ones,
you know, in Network Rail really see that
coming through
that we all trying to help the industry
as well as the workforce in it
and we want to grow
and Network
Rail have been so accessible as well.
The people that work in Network
Rail are very accessible
and they're willing to give it
the time of day
which you know, I couldnt fault help them.
They always give me the time of day
to have talks and discussions with them.
And, you know,
I really do appreciate that as well.
And, you know, as an SME
you would think that they wouldn't listen.
They'd only listen to the big tier 1s
They're not like not at all.
They really do
listen take into consideration
what we're going through as well
because in general,
things aren't ever easy or simple.
Nothing good in life,
I always say is
you know,
that let's take the time to listen
to understand what we're going through
and what's happening
and all side of the world,
not just obviously the tier one side.
They take both aspects,
which I think is incredible.
It's been a pleasure speaking with you
today, Monica.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for listening
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Track Talk podcast.
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