CARGO WAGON HAS OBTAINED THE ECM CERTIFICATE
Previously, Cargo Wagon engaged in various activities and projects. One of them was obtaining the ECM certificate. We spoke about this achievement, as well as other challenges and future steps, with the head of the Cargo Wagon technical team, Mr. Marek Fodor.
In the previous period, Cargo Wagon was engaged in a number of activities and projects. One of them was obtaining the ECM certificate, which brings several benefits for the company and its customers. Marek Fodor, the head of the technical team, told us about this success, as well as other challenges and next steps.
Explain briefly what the ECM certificate means for Cargo Wagon.
In particular, the statement that the internal processes related to the maintenance of our fleet are fully compliant with EU Commission Regulations 2019/779 and 402/2013, which was agreed by the entire audit team of VÚŽ Slovakia, which conducted the certification audit with us.
What does this mean in practice?
Broader competences and, of course, greater responsibility. The technical decisions belong exclusively to ECM, which for us meant the role of a kind of intermediary between maintenance workshops or customers and ECM. On the one hand, it was a great school for us, which gave us a lot of experience and guidance on how to deal with individual situations. On the other hand, it slowed things down a lot.
So today we can make the most of our experience and, in cooperation with our maintenance contractors, translate it into maintenance procedures so that maintenance is high-quality and time-efficient.
Marek Fodor
Head of the Technical Team
Marek has gradually worked in several technical positions at Cargo Wagon, which has given him an in-depth knowledge of the procedures for maintaining railway freight wagons. His priorities are high efficiency and quality of maintenance, as well as the expertise of the team of technicians. Marek also represents Cargo Wagon as a member of the executive committees of wagon owner associations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
What are the other benefits of ECM certification for your customers?
To provide quality service to our customers, we need to be efficient in our maintenance planning and work with our customers and suppliers as much as possible. Ideally, we can repair the wagon where it is operating at a time that suits our customer, so we need to take seasonality into account, and of course we need to do all of this in the shortest possible time.
Just getting certified gives us a wider choice of workshops to maintain our fleet, this increases the available capacity, which ultimately results in shorter repair times.
Why have you only now decided to become an ECM?
We successfully passed our first ISO 9001 certification audit in 2020, which has a 3-year validity, meaning we had to defend our certification this year. Every year we strive to move the system forward and last year, after a successful surveillance audit, we decided to gradually start implementing the requirements of EC Regulations 2019/779 and 402/2013 into the system. This was advised in early 2023 and so, after successfully defending our ISO 9001 certification, we decided to apply for ECM certification.
What changes did Cargo Wagon have to undergo to obtain this certificate?
The most time-consuming change was the implementation of the requirements of the above-mentioned regulations into internal directives, which, in addition to partial changes in several directives, also meant issuing a completely new risk management directive. An important change for the future was, for example, the decision according to which maintenance regulations we will maintain our fleet.
In terms of the day-to-day work of our technical team, these changes were fortunately minimal. Even before we were certified, we worked intensively with our ECM in planning, development and maintenance management, so naturally we had most of the processes set up as if they were already the entity responsible for maintenance.
What are the next steps in relation to ECM?
First and foremost, we need to put into practice those processes that we have not yet had the opportunity to implement in-house with regard to ECM outsourcing. In addition, we have to change the ECM data in the European Vehicle Register (EVR) and the related modifications to the inscriptions on the wagons. In the long term, we need to continuously analyse the maintenance data, assess the risks and translate the information into incremental changes to the system that will improve our processes and, ultimately, the service we provide to our customers.