Supplier Update | November 2018

This is my first update since taking over the role of commercial and development director from Matt Steele in September, and sadly we have seen a number of serious incidents within this short space of time. Last week, a member of the South East route team was fatally struck by a train whilst placing protection at Stoats Nest Junction. This follows an incident in Crewe which left two operatives seriously injured after two pieces of plant collided. These tragic events act as a stark reminder of the dangerous environment in which we put people to work every day. We must now focus on preventing similar incidents, by learning from them and challenging the way we do things.

Both incidents are reported as safety bulletins on Safety Central and I would urge you to share these with your teams if you haven't already done so.

We have also had some great achievements and it's important to recognise that too - IP Track have been awarded three Safety Swords of Honour by the British Safety Council for the improvements they have made to their safety performance. IP Signalling were also successfully awarded the highest level (4) in their P3M3 assessment, an internationally recognised programme management review. This recognition for our projects is testament to the improvements we have all made over CP5 and something we should be proud of.

As we approach the end of the year, procurement for the upcoming control period continues on schedule. Scotland and North East are expected to announce their contract award in the coming weeks and Southern by the end of the year. We have also held a number of events including the Chief Executive Dinner and a two day Commercial Directors Forum with 70 commercial representatives from across our supply chain, where we discussed key industry issues and reignited working groups.

We have made real progress by working together, but as ever there is still much more we can do.

Eoin O'Neill
Commercial and Development Director

ORR approves £35bn plans to boost Britain's railway

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has set out its final determination on Network Rail's £35bn plans (£31bn in England and Wales and £4bn in Scotland) to make Britain's railway more reliable and focused on passengers' needs.

This includes £7.7bn for maintenance of the railway and £16.6bn for renewals, which is a 17% increase from renewals spend in CP5. They have also increased the Performance Innovation Fund from £10m (in our draft determination) to £40m and confirmed a significant funding and resource boost for Network Rail's timetabling and planning functions, with the System Operator's forecast spend almost doubling.

In CP6, Network Rail will become much more locally focused with each route having its own budget, delivery plans and scorecards, helping to better deliver for our customers. You can read more here.

Requirements management eLearning courses

Refreshed eLearning modules on Requirements Management are now available to our suppliers. If you or your team would benefit from learning more about Network Rail's requirements management standards and processes, please take advantage of this free training.

The three eLearning modules cover introduction to requirements management in Network Rail, development and subsequent management of requirements on projects and programmes.

The modules aim to help suppliers:

Ensure project/programme scope is clear and well understood
Are compliant with the Network Rail requirements standards
Lower risk, minimise overspends/overruns and reduce scope creep
Elicit project/programme requirements from all stakeholders
Improve traceability and decomposition of requirements
Create clear acceptance criteria
Write good quality requirements including analysing, validating, changing and baselining
Apply the Network Rail's requirement framework documentation, including the key roles and accountabilities supporting the framework and its process

External access to the courses on the eLearning Moodle platform can be obtained by contacting your Network Rail Sponsor or emailing the eLearning admin team.

If you have any queries please get in touch with the requirements management team.

PAN register on website

You can now access a copy of the PAN register on our supply chain webpage - this is in preparation for it being withdrawn from the current standards site.

Project Advice Notices (PANs) communicate formal advice and instructions in a rapid and consistent way within a programme or engineering team. The register helps identify current PANs, which a full copy of can then be requested from the relevant Network Rail commercial team. You can access the register here.

Rail Roadshow

We are supporting Rail Media's upcoming procurement event 'Rail Roadshow', which aims to enhance the supply chain's knowledge of the procurement process and ultimately help businesses tender and win work. The event includes presentations by Eoin O'Neill and Jo Dunn, IP Head of Procurement for IP.

The roadshow will take place on Thursday 22 November at Bird & Bird, London. You can find more information here: www.railroadshow.com.

Dates for your diaries

22 November
Rail Roadshow
You can find more information and register at www.railroadshow.com

February
National Supplier Conference
Further information will be available in the coming months and details of the event listed on our Supply Chain webpage, and publicised in this Supplier Update.