Eversholt Rail gets RISAS certification

One of Britain’s leading train fleet owners and asset managers has recently achieved an important accolade in the procurement of maintenance and overhaul processes.

Eversholt Rail, which owns and manages a large portfolio of 23 separate fleets, 3,495 passenger vehicles, 31 passenger locomotives, 83 freight locomotives and 981 freight wagons, has become the second major rolling stock company (ROSCO), to achieve RISAS (Railway Industry Supplier Approval Scheme) certification.

The RISAS certificate means Eversholt Rail has proven its capabilities at the highest level, in buying, managing and overseeing maintenance of the most critical aspects of rolling stock crucial to safety, reliability and performance.

This means that customers like passenger and freight train operating companies can assume a high level of assurance based on one universally accepted, rigorous assessment in RISAS, avoiding the duplication and unnecessary cost of multiple generic audits. RISAS is assessing the supplier’s ability to understand and manage the risks that it brings to the operational railway.

The assessment was undertaken by SGS CORREL Rail as a Rail Industry Supplier Approval Body (RISAB), accredited by RSSB. Such assessments pose ambitious challenges to candidates like Eversholt Rail, to be able to demonstrate excellence across their entire spectrum of activities from board room to shop floor.

This contributes to the safety management system (SMS) in controlling risk, competence management and organisational learning as well as meeting the requirements of UK and EU legislation. Unlike a generic questionnaire or tick-sheet, the RISAS assessment gets under the skin of the company and gets hard proof that its performance meets the railway’s requirements.

The move cements the ongoing commitment throughout the rail industry supply chain to embed RISAS as the ‘standard’ for assuring the supply of critical products and services associated with rolling stock maintenance.

Eversholt Rail’s RISAS certificate came into effect on 13 October 2011 and was formally presented to Eversholt’s Chief Executive Officer Mary Kenny by SGS CORREL Rail’s Gary Winstanley, Chair of the RISAS Board Ruud Haket, and RSSB’s Director of National Programmes John Abbott, at Eversholt Rail’s offices in London.

Mary commented: ‘With our current market share of approximately one third of the UK passenger rolling stock market, we saw RISAS as a very important input to our business and the future of rail industry supplier assurance. We hope this will inspire suppliers along the chain.’

Barry Cullinane, who led the SGS CORREL Rail RISAS team during Eversholt Rail’s assessment, added: ‘Eversholt Rail has demonstrated that it has the courage, ambition and proven capability to deliver to the RISAS ‘standard’. It shows conviction in the scheme and that, as a ROSCO, they walk-the-talk when it comes to setting similar high standards for their own suppliers to achieve.’

RSSB’s John Abbott said: ‘Passengers and freight using the 21st century railway rely on well-maintained, reliable, safe, modern rolling stock. RISAS is designed to support this and RSSB provides the rail industry with the framework for RISAS to work. There is now more appetite than ever to take advantage of a scheme which provides a modern, risk-based approach to supplier assurance, while at the same time, cutting out the cost of duplication.’

RISAS is facilitated by RSSB combining expertise in administration of national programmes with knowledge and experience of rolling stock standards and competence. For further information, go to: http://www.rssb.co.uk/national_programmes/risas.asp