Question NW580 to the Minister of Public Enterprises
28 March 2024 - NW580
Gondwe, Dr M to ask the Minister of Public Enterprises
What (a) kind of a system does Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) use to schedule and track its freight rail, (b) was the outcome of the tender issued in 2022 for the procurement of a digitised system for the scheduling and tracking of TFR’s freight rail and (c) are the relevant details of the reasons TFR has not implemented a digitised system for the scheduling and tracking of its freight rail?
Reply:
According to the information received from Transnet:
TFR has embarked on a digital transformation journey that aims to change the organisation into a digitally enabled railway operator. The digital transformation journey has three phases to it, namely stabilisation, optimisation, and digitisation.
In the first two phases (stabilisation and optimisation), TFR has been focusing on the stability, availability and reliability of its current systems, applications, and tools, while enhancing and optimising them to ensure sustainability of business operations.
(a) TFR currently uses semi-automated and fragmented legacy systems, applications, and tools to schedule and track its freight rail operations.
The third phase of the digital transformation journey speaks to the end-to-end digitisation of TFR’s business processes and operations, through the implementation and integration of safe, secure, relevant, and resilient digital platforms, technologies, and related infrastructure across the organisation’s value chain. In 2022, TFR obtained approval of the business case for the implementation of a fully automated Integrated Train Plan (ITP) solution, which was followed by a rigorous procurement process enabled through an open market tender sourcing approach.
(b)&(c) To date, TFR has onboarded a service provider to implement the ITP solution:
(i) the implementation will take place over three and half years, from January 2024 to September 2027.
(ii) the first six months of the implementation period entails the Value Commit phase, which is currently underway to confirm and refine business needs, with the following anticipated key deliverables:
- As-Is business process analysis,
- Business Process re-engineering: To-Be business process definition,
- Change management strategy,
- Business value roadmap definition (Benefits Realisation Planning),
- Overall risk mitigation strategy.
(iii) the execution of the ITP solution follows a phased approach, with the first release to production planned to go live in July 2025; enabling business to realise value with the first release (Base Train Planning, Fleet & Train Crew Planning) and start consuming benefits such as increased utilisation of rolling stock, optimised capacity planning, consistency in service offering, more available slots for yard activities, better utilisation of the crew, and more efficiency from the planning team, among others.
(iv) The second release scheduled for August 2026 will focus on Production Planning to enable reduction in train delays and cancellations due to crew, fleet, and network unavailability, and increased utilization of rolling stock (increased profitability).
(v) The final deployment to production will be in September 2027, this release will focus on Execution Monitoring and Deviation Management (Improved response time and decision efficiency to disruptions, enhanced visual and KPIs support for strategic decision making).
(vi) This will be followed by a ten-year system support and maintenance period.