RailwayWraps
We provide solutions for the railway industry covering overhaul, arising work, wheel balancing, wheelset management, heavy equipment management and maintenance solutions. Our clients include Eversholt, Hitachi, Siemens, Bombardier, Wabtec and Brush Traction. Through the internet we reach out to wider railway companies down our clients supply line. Sign up to our mailing list to keep up to speed with the latest developments or read previous site news articles below.
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Expanding Our Client Services Team
The first phase of our expansion plan is to increase our client services team. We'll be doing this both by recruiting directly but also working in partnership with railway engineering consultants.
Job Title: Client Consultancy Team - Help us provide services that technicians and engineers use to … more
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New Offices at Leeds Rail Station
We have moved into our new office located in the Platform building at Leeds Rail Station. The 'Tech Hub' at platform is a centre for Leeds digital businesses which currently make up 10% of all jobs in the city. Easy access direct from the railway network will make it easier than ever to attend … more
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Train Maintenance Wraps
ExcelWraps is already in use in the overhaul of railway vehicles and we are pleased to announce that we now have a solution for train maintenance. We challenged ourselves to work on non-fixed formation fleet (HST) requiring S exams (nightly), B exams (weekly), X exams (quarterly), time interval … more
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Wabtec Rail's First Bogie Project Wrapped
Eversholt's CL321 Bogie Overhaul has been wrapped. It took just 2 days to roll the solution out using MoreVision's Matrix and Morph technique. We have set up a separate workgroup call 'Bogies', from here workgroup administrators can add new users, assign competences and reset passwords.
Using the … more
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Wheel Load Balancing and Levelling for Dummies!
You are invited to an evening hosted by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers North Eastern Railway Division on Tuesday January 9th 2018 18:00pm at Oxford Place Centre Leeds. The talk will be given by Matt Burgess of Meridian Rail who will share his experience in ensuring the best possible margins … more
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Wheelset Overhaul Management Wrap
Our latest wrap application controls the supply of new wheels, axles, brake discs, bearings, gearwheels, refurbishment of power driven and passenger wheelsets, replacement of worn components, magnetic particle inspection, ultrasonic testing and dynamic balancing of wheelsets. Work carried out … more
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Fleet Availability Management
Depots need to make trains available so that Train Operating Companies can provide a passenger service. Availability reports say where each unit is coming from, that it is prepped for service, when the depot needs it back for maintenance and states any minor faults not affecting service. It's a … more
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Capturing Railway Arising Work
The railway has a nasty habit of throwing up un-foreseen and unplanned work. It is referred to as 'additional arising work' (AAW) and it will inevitably delay the work you were trying to complete and can bring it to a halt altogether. You may not always know how to rectify the problem and require … more
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Brush Traction Achieves the Aspiration of 86% of World CEOs
A Price Waterhouse Cooper survey found that 86% of CEOs believe digital technologies creates a competitive advantage that is key to success today. The top three technology priorities of industrial manufacturing CEOs are mobility (73%), cybersecurity (72%) and data mining and analysis (70%). Brush … more
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Wabtec Take Control of Uncontrolled Documents
A controlled document is a reference document which, through the course of its lifecycle may be reviewed, modified and distributed several times. Examples of a controlled document include technical drawings, specifications, procedures, data sheets, contracts, application forms and plans. A … more
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A 12 Fold Increase in Productivity in Under An Hour!
Our 15 minute Demo Video explains what ExcelWraps is and that you need no IT infrastructure or expertise to introduce it. The next 15 minutes covers Wrap Creation drawing on your existing Excel skills. Delivery across your organisation using your own Wrapsite is explained in 20 minutes. In the … more
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Secure in the Safe Hands of ExcelWraps
Who can access our data? How is our privacy protected? How are we protected against hackers? Is our wrapsite always available to guarantee business continuity? Can we recover from any scenario no matter how unlikely? ExcelWraps operate a framework of ISO 27001 compliant security policies and … more
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Versatile Rapid Application Development
ExcelWraps is the fastest way to make your business paperless... all you need to know is Excel, we do the rest. It is extremely versatile as demonstrated by sample projects listed below. Given our history, the majority of projects are UK railway industry related but increasingly we provide … more
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Time And Motion
Time and motion is a widely accepted method applicable to the improvement and upgrading of work systems. This integrated approach to work system improvement is known as methods engineering and it is applied today to industrial as well as service organisations. Traditionally time and motion data is … more
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A No Brainer Go Paperless
As a rule of thumb office supplies cost between £13 to £64 per person per month depending on factors like industry and the nature of the business, as well as organisational size, culture and policies (source LAC Group). This can be compared directly to ExcelWraps pricing between £7 to £20 per user … more
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C4 Overhaul Wrapped in a Day!
We put our ‘Matrix and Morph’ technique to the test last week to demonstrate just how quickly wraps can be implemented in any business. Wraps collect the necessary serial numbers and engineering data so that railway jobs can be signed off with a digital signature. Just one day was required to make … more
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WabtecRail.ExcelWraps.com Opens
We are delighted to announce that Wabtec have embraced ExcelWraps technology and on the 6th June 2016 their sub-domain opened for business. This site will deploy wraps to capture data for Wabtec Rail's overhaul business. All shop floor paper work will be replaced with electronic forms gathering … more
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Project Management and Hot Air
A woman was in a hot air balloon. She spotted someone below and lowered closer to the ground to get his attention. She shouted, "Hey, I don't know where I am. Can you help me?" The man responded, "You are in a hot air balloon. You're about twenty feet above the ground, three miles east of the … more
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Demo Expert Knowledge Wrap
Bolted joints are one of the most common elements in construction and machine design yet most engineers have bolt problems at some point in their career. Try the fully working BoltExpert demo, it is restricted to the use of M8 and M12, but it illustrates how expert knowledge can be captured in a … more
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Finally Paperless
"By the way our paper consumption has dropped by 99%"
I just have to share this quote from our Hitachi Rail site administrator, it really sums up what we are about at ExcelWraps. The truth is that wraps are simply quicker and more convenient than paper. Speaking with another potential railway … more
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All Wrapped Up for Christmas
We have all this new functionality wrapped up for Christmas:
Wrap Gantt Charts – Automatic time and motion studies by plotting the time when the job starts (when a Wrap instance is created) and when the job stops (when the wrap is signed off).
Wrap Email Alerts - now available when a Wrap is … more
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Data at Your Fingertips
At ExcelWraps we create Wraps from Excel worksheets. Using the cell names defined in our spreadsheet we pick off particular items to generate a MyWraps report like this. The cell names I used are here the railway ‘unit' number, the ‘car' type, an axle weights named ‘weighta18' and ‘weighta27'. We … more
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Critical Dimensions
Electrical motor brushes are wearing out faster than anticipated and were unlikely to make it to the next overhaul. This is a classic fleet management problem in the railway industry and could result in faults in service or having to bring forward the overhaul program early. Thankfully ExcelWraps … more
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Continuous Improvement
The MyWraps chart view shows how well a test load is applied during the set-up procedure of railway equipment. Initially we were pretty poor at matching our target so we introduced a change to our process in April 2015 and since then we have been much better in hitting our target. Examining the … more
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'First Three' Initiative: 3 Projects Wrapped in 3 Months
So how do you get started with ExcelWraps? You nominate your ExcelWraps administrator (who should understand your systems and can work with Excel). We will join them (literally at their desktop) guiding them through the technology so that ‘best practises’ are adopted. Starting with paper forms (or … more
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Data Mining with ExcelWraps
A wrap is used to collect information and perform calculations. Each time a wrap is used it is submitted to the cloud database and it creates a wrap instance. Each wrap will spawn many wrap instances. There are many on-line and offline tools that you can work with this data. Any of these reporting … more
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A Wrap Signature Means so Much More
The problem with signatures on paper forms is their lack of integrity. Is it legible? Is it forged? Did you complete everything correctly before signing? Are you competent to sign (who checks your qualifications or your level of authority)? Is the date correct or has it been retrospectively … more
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Wrap Widgets - Beyond Excel Functionality
“When making Type A of a product I need to collect 10 items of information but if we are making Type B only 8 of the 10 items are relevant. Can one Wrap be used for the two products so that I only need to maintain one version?” Wraps use the Row Hide Widget so that when a linked cell changes from … more
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Wraps Working With Barcodes
This article tells you how to gain efficiencies from barcodes using tablets and smartphones. Imagine never again will serial numbers be entered incorrectly into a wrap and it will cost you nothing at all. The most compatible barcode app to use with ExcelWraps is the Manatee Barcode app which is … more
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Concluding The Paddington Derailment Story
Closing out a case study from last year the Rail Accident Investigations Branch have released their final report. At around 05:20 hrs on Sunday 25 May 2014, the third vehicle of an empty five car class 360/2 passenger train derailed while it was running along platform 3 at London Paddington station. … more
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WrapMaps And MyWraps Reports Demo
A short video demonstration of what can be achieved using www.ExcelWraps.com technology. You'll see WrapLinks, DigitalSignatures, WrapMedia all working together to send live information across a project. MyWraps reports shows what wraps are currently awaiting your signature and also used to extract … more
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Pill for ERP Headaches?
Research shows that the top problems encountered with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software are cost and inflexibility. ERP systems are generally imposed from a corporate level and become an immovable constraint on the whole business. ExcelWraps, only requiring users to know Excel, puts … more
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Life is Too Short for Software Specifications
When you need software you need to communicate your requirements to a programmer. This usually requires some kind of Software Requirements Specification and to give you some idea of what it covers see below... on second thoughts don't read it - throw Software Requirements Specifications in the bin! … more
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ExcelWraps Competency Model
“The most incompetent you can be is when you don’t know you need to be competent”. Let's consider organisational competency and examine how ExcelWraps seamlessly imposes competency management on your operation.
Operation – Performing a series of acts involved in delivering a benefit to end … more
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Record Time for Railway Vehicle Levelling and Wheel Load Balancing
The video above shows the vehicle levelling and wheel load balancing taking place at Ashford Rail depot. The Hitachi team completed a unit in record time last week. The whole 6 car unit took under four hours to complete – this is all the more impressive when you realised that before ExcelWraps was … more
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The Life Cycle of a Wrap Instance
Like all things wrap instances are created, they live and they die. When a wrap instance is created it remembers which user created it. At any time in its life it will be waiting for signatures from users with a specific user role (or indeed specific username). The final wrap signature includes the … more
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Andy Armstrong Wrap Creator
Andy Armstrong is the Chief Wrap Creator at Hitachi's Ashford Train Depot. Andy knows everything there is to know about overhauling the high speed class 395 trains. When Andy set about building his Wraps he did so knowing this complex process intimately. Whilst the process is complicated … more
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Integrating ExcelWraps Into a Production Environment
The video explains the traditional difficulties in compiling paper documentation packages in a production environment and how Wraps now collects and shares production information in the cloud. It shows how the technology has been adopted on the shop floor and what the shop floor staff think of it. … more
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All This Power Harnessed by My Spreadsheets
Wrap up your spreadsheets in our technology and see how it can transform your business. We have yet to find a business challenge that ExcelWraps cannot meet. Its the combination of your knowledge of a process and our unique data toolkit that makes it such a winning partnership. Here is how we are … more
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The Simple Bolt is Surprisingly Complex
Close to 100% of railway depot staff have found a bolt that is inexplicably loose or missing altogether yet few engineer have enough bolting knowledge to suggest corrective actions with confidence. All Hitachi depot workers attend our “Appreciation of Bolting” training. They are in closest contact … more
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How to Avoid Derailment
It comes as no surprise that an unloaded vehicle derails easily as derailment is driven by lateral curving loads that drive the wheel up and over the rail against the vertical load pushing the wheels onto the track. Viewing the Crash in Santiago de Compostela in Spain 2013 it is clear that the … more
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Railway Wheel Load Balancing and Vehicle Levelling
How to improve derailment safety, reduce gauge infringement risk and extend wheel lives.
Hitachi fleet engineers keep the high speed class 395 fleet in optimum condition through practical application of the best technologies in the UK railway industry. MoreVision is an engineering consultancy with … more
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Wraps are 500 Times Cheaper to Develop Than Conventional Apps
You can develop a wrap to support any of your initiatives for a few hundred dollars. This is 500 to 1000 times cheaper than developing a bespoke App. If you don't believe us then use the following on-line calculators and calculate the costs for yourselves. App development company Otreva has a … more
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Our Unique Selling Point
Uniquely we use Excel as an app development tool because everybody has a copy and everybody can use it. You can set out your app in Excel exactly as you want your users to see it. You can fully test your app in Excel to ensure that everything is working in all circumstances. When you pass your … more
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Getting Started with ExcelWraps
Your Subdomain and Users - The first thing to realise is that Wraps are accessed through your own ExcelWraps subdomain. You’ll become administrator of your subdomain and set up your users with at least one ‘role’. For example Unipart roles link to their competence management system (Production … more
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RIP Paperwork
ExcelWraps replaces all paper records at Unipart
A quantum leap for the Hitachi 395 bogie overhaul as paper is superseded by Wraps. Now information is immediately available through the cloud and shared across Unipart, with its clients and its subcontractors. Bogie overhaul consists of 20 main … more