ADAPTING A DESIGN PROCESS TO A NEW SET OF STANDARDS – A CASE STUDY FROM THE RAILWAY INDUSTRY

Since coming into effect in 1999, EN 50126 ff. define procedures for the management of the reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS) of railway applications. As a result, companies need to verify that not only their products, but also their design process has been in accordance with this standard. This study explores the factors that contribute to the difficulties a major German manufacturer of railway applications is currently experiencing in introducing a new design process that has been adapted to comply with the new standard. These difficulties are mainly expressed by increased development time and costs – but possibly not only due to obvious reasons such as increased testing and documentation efforts.