For a major transport and passenger rail operator, maintaining a sprawling fleet of rolling stock requires precision inventory management. Carrying too many spare parts ties up massive amounts of corporate working capital, while carrying too few leads to grounded trains, delayed passengers, and spiralling emergency shipping costs.

This case study session explores how a leading rail operator successfully tackled this high-stakes balancing act through a strategic SAP spare parts optimisation project. The presentation outlines how they digitised their inventory strategies to ensure the right component is always sitting in the correct depot at the exact moment a maintenance engineer needs it. By leveraging SAP to align supply chain inventory directly with real-time asset maintenance schedules, this transit leader has significantly enhanced fleet availability while simultaneously driving down unnecessary storage and capital expenditures.

What participants will learn:
• How to look past standard technology narratives and actively measure how aligning spare parts visibility with asset schedules frees up locked working capital and drives enterprise value
• Strategies for safeguarding passenger schedules and regulatory transport commitments by minimising the risk of train-on-ground (TOG) delays caused by stockouts
• Practical methods for breaking down the silos between maintenance planning and warehouse procurement to enable data-driven, just-in-time parts replenishment
• Best practices for utilising SAP inventory tracking to strategically distribute high-value components across geographically dispersed depots based on historical wear-and-tear data