Digital Insights: Revolutionizing railways with zentrak Asset and Maintenance Management

In the past decade, digitalization has become a fundamental pillar of rail infrastructure. In a highly dynamic market, digitized assets, continuous monitoring and paperless maintenance are no longer luxuries—they’re necessities. A software application that covers these functionalities supports railway operators to meet evolving demands and gain a competitive advantage. 

But how does voestalpine Railway Systems ensure that its customers are prepared for the railways of tomorrow? The key is transitioning from analog to digital processes as well as establishing a condition-based asset management- a complex challenge that demands the right expertise, advanced tools and cutting-edge software. 

We aim to simplify and enhance asset management for railway operators, component providers and service personnel. With zentrak Asset and Maintenance Management, customers can answer vital questions about their assets, such as: 

• What assets do we have in operation? 

• What is their current condition? 

• How can I optimize my maintenance strategy? 

• What has been done in the past to rectify faults? 

• Which maintenance tasks are still open? 

zentrak Asset and Maintenance Management provides a holistic view of all railway infrastructure assets and their conditions, empowering them to confidently manage their infrastructure. 

Traditionally, reactive and preventive maintenance in the rail industry has relied on time or counter-based cycles. While this approach helps to prevent some failures, it doesn’t catch everything. At voestalpine Railway Systems, we strive to improve on this by combining real-time and historical data to predict failures. 

Assoc. Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Stefan Marschnig from the University of Technology in Graz emphasizes that the biggest advantage of digitalization is knowledge gain:

We need more information about asset conditions and their behavior over time to improve railways, he says. Predictive maintenance will help save costs and improve track availability. 

Dr. Albert Jörg, Managing Director at WS Service GmbH, highlights the importance of digital solutions being supportive rather than burdensome.

Any digital solution shouldn’t add additional workload to maintenance teams, he explains. Service personnel use zentrak Asset and Maintenance Management as their holistic information hub, allowing them to complete their tasks more efficiently and improve on-track performance.