1. Project background, issues and objectives

1.1 Context

This group is a French company with international operations, active in the fields of passenger and freight transport. Among its various activities, it manages, operates and maintains railway infrastructure. In 2005, experts from a Swiss engineering school carried out an audit of the network. The audit revealed a significant ageing of certain network components and, more generally, a gradual loss of capacity. One of the outcomes of this work was the decision to review the way in which network maintenance was organized and carried out, and to adopt a new production method known as the "industrialization of maintenance". To bring together all the actions required to restructure maintenance activities, a program was officially launched at the start of the 2007 academic year,...