The aim of the potential partnership is to combine SKF’s experience of rotating machinery in algorithms and smart solutions for railway bearing damage detection and diagnosis with Televic GSP’s resources in bogie mounted hardware solutions for data collection and edge computing.
Both parties hope to develop digital solutions – ranging from data collection to actionable information visualisation and reporting – to provide maintenance intelligence. They will aim to provide safe maintenance interval extensions via advanced algorithms for data analysis, bearing application knowledge and integrated product life cycle services.
According to SKF, this will allow train operators to reduce downtime while actionable insights into rolling stock increase uptime and train availability.
Maurizio Giovannelli, director global railway at SKF, said: “With the aim of combining our strengths, we want to drive innovations to enable our customers to run their trains more reliably, and with less downtime due to unnecessary maintenance or unplanned stops.”
Televic GSP CEO Lieven Danneels said: “The way forward is in a data-driven approach to risk management and maintenance strategies. This will, ultimately, enable the industry to make better decisions based on data and meaningful actionable information.”