Engineering Design - An Exercise in Humility

It was early 2018. The basic design of the Train 18 (later rechristened the Vande Bharat Express) was complete, and the manufacture of prototypes had started. I was visited by the International Business Head of SolidWorks from France. SolidWorks is a 3-D engineering design software from Dassault Systems, the same people who make Rafale fighter planes. It is not as vast and complex as the Unigraphics (Now NX) but was good enough for design of a train system. After all the Dassault Systems designed aircraft on it. 

Over a dinner the man asked me candidly, “Why don’t you design the Main Battle Tank for the Avadi people? They have been doing it for so long.” Avadi, about ten kilometers from the ICF, was the Heavy Vehicle Factory (HVF) of the Ordinance Factory Board. The visitor from Dassault, during his visits to Chennai, would visit both the units, the ICF and the HVF. He told me that the Avadi people had been designing the MBT for over thirty years and there was the ICF that had designed a full train in six months. ICF was his prized customer that he would showcase all over the world.

That got me thinking. This was the remark of a neutral observer. Why was it that the HVF Avadi was still struggling with finalising the design what with MTechs and PhDs as their designers? At the same time how was it that the ICF had done it in six months and was going ahead with production? It must be mentioned here that the design of the Train 18, as finalised in the year 2018, continues to be the production model for over six years and after sixty trains now. The Titagarh-BHEL JV, M/S KINET (TMH-RVNL JV) and the BEML, for their Sleeper versions, have finally adopted the same ICF design after a lot of look around.

I decided to spend some time in the ICF Design Department to understand what made it tick. There are about a hundred designers some of whom were working on Train 18. There were Mechanical and Electrical designers and then there were final integrators. All of them were Group C staff, a far cry from the accomplished designers of a Defence Unit. Yet they had achieved something that Dassault Systems considered a feather in the cap of SolidWorks.

Some of the factors, in my opinion, that made the design department of ICF a superlative achiever were as follows:

1. Design is an iterative process. This, in itself, necessitates that the designer should keep his ego aside and be ready to revise his designs repeatedly, and as many times as required, to find a workable model.

2. There must be a seamless flow of information between the shopfloor and the design office. This includes transmission of data on incompatibility, manufacturability, and misfits from production to design and the humility of the latter to listen carefully and make necessary changes and improvements. 

3.  Don’t wait for perfection. That day never comes. The Train 18 team had begun the production as soon as the basic design was ready and kept improving and improvising on the go.

4. There must be a design freeze at some point in time. Someone in the management should have the authority, courage, and maturity to order a stop to endless tinkering. Freeze the design and push ahead. 

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Quo Vadis, ICF? And, why?

 

The Japanese are playing pricey for the supply of trains for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Corridor on the back of them funding the project. The Ministry of Railways had done right to order the ICF to make two trains for the High-Speed line to establish the price line and to take a major step towards Atmanirbhrata. It would have been a welcome challenge for the ICF to venture into the Standard Guage territory and to make truly high-speed trains for 250kmph operations. The Vande Bharat was only a semi-high-speed design although scalable to 200 with some tweaking.

But the news goes that the ICF has handed over this godsent opportunity on a platter to the BEML. I have nothing against the BEML, they are competent people and can deliver what they have been asked to do. But so could the ICF, and at much lower costs. It is a shame that ICF thinks that they can’t do it even though they designed and manufactured the Vande Bharat train in a record time of eighteen months, a feat never seen before anywhere in the world.

Let me try to understand what could have gone wrong with and within the ICF. Surely, they are no less confident today than they were in the year 2018, when they made the Train 18. Probably the Railway Board thinks that the ICF can’t and have, therefore, ordered so. But what does the Railway Board know about the design department, the bold procurement system, and the shop floor skills of the ICF? And, indeed what do they know about the innovative engineers of the ICF? After all wasn’t it the same Railway Board that, in one of the worst ever libelous campaigns destroyed the careers and lives of the great team of ICF.

Even if the Railway Board allowed the ICF to make the 250kmph train, would the ICF officialdom have taken the risks that such an ambitious project entails? Haven’t they seen the fate that befell the bold decision makers of ICF in the aftermath of the wildly successful Train 18?

Let me recount the story lest it should remain unsaid.

Those were the days! O, those were the days, when the Integral Coach Factory, Perambur was a Temple of Modern India. It was on the must-visit list of foreign dignitaries. The Government of India would showcase it as a great feat of industrialization. The Chinese Premier, Chou-en-Lai, during his visit on the 6^th of December 1956 wrote thus:

“This is a modernized Coach Factory. It is worthwhile for the Chinese to come and learn. This factory is well-built and well-organised. The technology and training given are very good. It is worthwhile for the Orientals to take pride in it.”

Indeed, the ICF was a stellar symbol of the baby steps that a newly independent India was taking in becoming Atmanirbhar – steel plants, irrigation and power projects, national highways, a locomotive factory at Chittaranjan, space research, dozens of scientific laboratories, and of course the ICF. More was to come later. But ICF, from the word go, got into the act and has been an icon of innovation and large-scale production since then. The ICF has so far designed over six-hundred types of railcars and has manufactured over seventy thousand of them making it the largest rail-car builder in the world. Starting from a humble 75kmph Swiss Schlieren design the ICF went on to make 130kmph air-conditioned coaches, the 3-tier AC being a real innovation in the field of rail travel. It even delivered a rail platform for mobile missile launchers for the armed forces. It seamlessly integrated the German LHB in its production lines and delivered coaches for speeds upto 160kmph.

The Vande Bharat Express is the jewel in the crown not only of the ICF but of the entire nation. It immediately caught international attention for its futuristic design, the ultra-low cost, a third of international prices, and the speed of delivery, from concept to prototype in eighteen months. The train successfully upset the applecart of international players and delivered a proverbial iPhone at Android prices. It, on the other hand, also aroused departmental jealousies in some hearts, who would rather import than innovate. The reason was not only a chance at corruption in international purchases but worse, a total lack of confidence in our own abilities to think big and deliver. Sudhanshu Mani’s idea brought the edifice of the import lobby, vested interests, and naysayers crashing down.

Not to give up, the same lobby then launched a massive vilifying campaign against the team that had brought this dream train to life. It also, to justify its nefarious game, condemned the train itself, calling it energy-inefficient, an incomplete work, done through non-transparent tenders, needing improvement etc. A spate of Vigilance cases was filed against twelve senior officers, GM and lower down. Nothing came of these cases; the CVC trashed them all and reprimanded the Railway Ministry too. But the delay cost at least one officer, who could have gone to become the Chairman, Railway Board, his possible rise. They all suffered years of ignominy and social stigma, “They must have done something wrong, after all.”

In a brutal environment reminiscent of the Nambi Narayan case of ISRO, which delayed the cryogenic rocket engine for several years, the production of Vande Bharat Express was stalled for over three years – the dedicated design and shop-floor teams were scattered and the supply chain dried up with brilliant MSME entrepreneurs turning cynical. The saboteurs’ lobby was so strong and well-entrenched that even the PMO, through its interventions, could not find a quick way out of the mire.

To justify their actions even the CRB went on record, without data, that the Vande Bharat train made thus far wasn’t up to the mark, was energy-inefficient and that a level playing field was not provided in tenders. Indeed, the pioneering team had never claimed that they had made a prefect product; prototypes can be anything but. Then started a long-drawn process of revising the technical specifications to improve the design and revamp the tender conditions to create a level playing field. But much ado about nothing – there were mere cosmetic changes in the design and the same vendor emerged the supplier for series production too repeatedly in tender after tender. Several tenders were issued and cancelled, all this leading to a loss of over three years of production, a period during which at least fifty semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains could have rolled out. But, whereas in the case of victimization of Nambi Narayan and loss of similar number of years at ISRO, the government has woken up and is fixing the perpetrators, those who sabotaged a far bigger national project, one that touches millions of lives, and one that the government now swears by, have gone unchallenged.

Do I, therefore, blame the ICF? Hmm..! They must have swallowed their pride to surrender such a great opportunity of becoming a true world player. Now, the BEML will become one albeit riding on the basic design of the ICF and sourcing from the ICF’s supply chain.

I wish you the best, BEML!

I don’t empathize with you, ICF! You could have tried harder.

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Technology Roadmap – The Missing Link (by Shubhranshu, IRSME (Retd.)

Indian Railways is probably the oldest large living business enterprise in the country. It has seen, since its advent in 1850’s, linking of remote and hilly areas, when automobiles didn’t even exist. It has lived through hap-hazard growth under the British and the Princely States, each following their own whims and standards. The Indian Railways have survived partition, flourished due to project uniguage, massive expansion and consolidation, reorganisations, oil-crisis, new technologies of rolling stock, tracks, and signals. Indeed, over the last one hundred and seventy years Indian Railways has also consistently earned reasonable profits and even largely funded its own growth and technology acquisitions. It has cadres of dedicated engineers, non-engineers, and staff that are under permanent employment and are attached to it even in retirement.

Some of these strengths, however, have resulted in silos that seek to grow vertically rather than horizontally, never intermingling with the adjoining silos in collaboration. Due to such isolation from the surrounding interacting systems has arisen a parental love for one’s own assets, department, and associated technology paths. Therefore, while we have 160/180 kmph passenger coaches and locomotives for over two decades, the brand-new Vande Bharat being actually being in the same speed-bracket, we have never been able to run these even at 130kmph for any meaningful distances. The celebrated C&M Volume I (a track standard) specifies tracks fit for 130kmph, but only for select trains. All other trains are restricted to 110kmph even though the track is “130kmph fit”. How does a network planner plan the throughput on such routes?

The Vande Bharat Express, a semi-high-speed train has caught the attention of the nation like nothing else in the recent memory. A high-speed train is actually a low-hanging fruit. We have had these for decades. We now plan to build 200 and 250kmph trains notwithstanding the fact that we don’t have tracks even to test them, let alone operate them commercially. Trains can be built in walled factories that don’t have to run them; trains can even be procured from the private sector or imported. Indian Railways’ Production Units can design and build a 200kmph, or speedier, train without any technology inputs from developed countries. The knowhow exists, or can be quickly developed, and the available supply chain is competent enough. On the other hand, it is the private sector that is struggling even in the face of assured purchase contracts.

Tracks and bridges, however, have to be built at site and kept ship-shape right where they lie. Signals can be procured but must be maintained at site in most cases. It is therefore an issue of organisation-wide culture that nurtures high speed infrastructure. The practice of train and loco maintenance is confined to sheds and depots, where good systems are easy to develop and sustain. The practice of maintenance of tracks and signals must transcend geography and several layers of management right down to the last man in the field. The Konkan Railway was built with a speed potential of 160kmph, that too in a difficult terrain. But never did a single service run on its tracks at that speed even though trains already existed to exploit that speed potential. KRCL soon degenerated to 110kmph due to maintenance practices that were honed on 110kmph lines.

A High-Speed-Rail system is a composite system of modern rolling stock, high-speed tracks, and necessary signalling and safety systems. Most HSR systems have dedicated tracks, even in our country, whether it is the Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR or RRTS Intercity. Investments are commensurately allocated in these systems in a holistic manner, not on departmental lobbying. Several disjointed projects to speed-up trains on our networks have failed to achieve even 130kmph. Several more are underway absorbing tens of thousands of crores. Unless there is a cultural and organisational transformation to permanently maintain such upgraded tracks to 130/160kmph standards, these upgraded routes will also meet the fate of the KRCL tracks. There is no sign of that coming even though Capital expenditure has been committed in ample measure.

It is the competitive resource grab that decides investments today. For example, with liberal budgetary support it has become an avowed target, nay a necessity, to modernise railway stations. Allocations for facelift for over a thousand railway stations, many of them in small or mid-size towns like Ranchi or Bhagalpur, are large enough for the facelift of the entire respective town. But the station facelift will go into granite and air-conditioned lounges, things that do not improve the experience of the average traveller and certainly do not improve train services or train upkeep, the raison d'être of a railway station.

We have had clamour for anti-collision systems for trains over the last many decades. The proposed system has undergone various name-changes and technology promises beginning from a fittingly-named Anti Collision Device to ETCS, Levels I and II, to the new and appealing name Kavach. It is estimated that a comprehensive Kavach installation on the entire network and on propulsion units may cost upwards of one and half lakh crore Rupees. Such massive investment is being committed on a technology that is not even proven over a short stretch. Does it make sense to duplicate the 300kmph ETCS Level II, albeit with an Indian name, on our routes and vehicles that are constrained to run at 110-130kmph for the next many decades?

We have procured expensive electric locomotives with 12000 horsepower that promised to transform freight traffic. But they turned out to be ineffective and needed to be assisted by diesel bankers in the very terrain they promised to conquer. This exposed not only poor understanding of traction engineering, but also irresponsible financial judgement. We continue to procure thousands of new freight electric locomotives without exploring how surplus passenger electric locomotives could be reconfigured to haul freight – a simple change in the gear-ratio, and software modification could have achieved that. Remember, large scale induction of Vande Bharat type trains and MEMUs will render a large number of passenger electric locomotives surplus. Yet investment in new locomotives continues unabated.

What is the way out of this ad hocism and unstructured investment planning? The Railway Ministry and the Board is manned by people of wisdom, who need to be trained, yes trained, to think for the organisation, not the department. A core team of engineers and finance experts need to draw medium and long-term technology maps that allocates resources on a need basis that ensures that all components of the Railway System grow like a manicured garden, not a hap-hazard shrubbery. Budget allocations, available and needed technologies, cash flow over the years, training of personnel, involvement of an assured supply-chain, make-in-India, and rates of return need to be laid down in hard numbers and measurable objectives. The core team will also be required to periodically examine the progress and benefits so that mid-course corrections can be done to optimise returns.

Only such a binding exercise will avoid situations like 160kmph trains that cannot run even at 130 as tracks and signals, curves and bridges do not match up. This technology plan should also aim at providing impeccable safety, robust communication systems, disaster management, and maximising throughput. Needless to say, the Railway Board must steer and vet this technology-map and reorganise investments accordingly for that is their job.

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Technical Failures, or Managerial?

Comparing Boeing and Indian Railways

Early in my career as an engineer, and even earlier in my education, I was trained to look for patterns, or trends, while investigating failures. There could be failures of the lubricating system causing large scale damage to sub-systems, or of the gear trains, or piston-rings, or seals and rubber. There could even be workmen-level lapses indicating poor training, lack of shop-floor discipline, inadequate supervision. Most of these problem were easy to solve as they fell squarely in the domain of an engineer.

I also learnt that if failures are randomly distributed across various sub-systems and show no pattern or trend, they are difficult to pin down to root technical causes and frustrate the management no end. Therein lies the rub. These failures are not technical – they are manifestations of serious management deficiencies. Two such glaring examples that have come to light in recent times are that of the Boeing Company and the Indian Railways.

The Boeing Company

Two crashes of the Boeing 737 Max in quick succession that killed hundreds of passengers – On October 29, 2018 Lion Air Flight 610, a 737 MAX 8 plane crashed in the sea, 13 minutes after take off, killing all 181 aboard. On March 10, 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a 737 MAX 8 crashed, 8 minutes after take off killing all 157 aboard. These were attributed to software overcorrection of plane’s attitude. Then there were cases of a door-plug detaching causing decompression on January 5, 2024 on an Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, a 737 MAX 9. This was attributed to loose bolts! As Recently as on May 25, 2024 a Southwest Airlines Flight 746 experienced "an uncontrolled side to side yawing motion" called a Dutch roll at an elevation of 32,000 and the plane had to be landed urgently. On June 14 this year it was reported that some sub-contractors (contractors of contractors) had used spurious titanium in aircraft parts. Earlier In April, Boeing told the F.A.A. about a separate episode involving potentially falsified inspection records related to the wings of 787 Dreamliner planes. Boeing reported to the F.A.A. that it might have skipped required inspections.

Causes:

So, we have cases of inadequate testing of software, poor hardware (as in nuts and bolts), suspicious flight controls, inspections that were ignored and records falsified. Whereas these failures may be attributed to lapses on the part of individuals, contractors, teams and validation engineers, they, in the overall reckoning, point to a serious failure of management. The pressure of production and deadlines was so high on the management that sound technical advice was ignored and whistle-blowers penalised. The case of Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at Boeing may be recalled, who was pushed back against and even threatened with physical violence, when he reported possible weakness in the fuselage of 787, the Dreamliner.

Let’s now come to the recent spate of accidents in Indian Railways.

To mention just a few:

On 2 June, 2023, Nearly 300 people were killed and over 800 injured in a horrific train derailment in Balasore, Orissa. The train derailed and an oncoming train collided with its derailed coaches. There was third train too involved in the crash, a freight train. derailment of 10 to 12 coaches of the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express caused them to fall onto the opposite track. This was attributed to wrong wiring by low level signal staff at a Level Crossing Gate.

On 26 August 2023 the Lucknow-Rameshwaram Bharat Gaurav train which was stationed near Madurai Junction caught fire killing 9 and injuring 20. This reported cause was that the passengers smuggled a gas cylinder aboard the train and were cooking in the coach when the fire broke out.

On 11 October 2023 6 coaches of 12506 Anand Vihar Terminal-Kamakhya Junction North East Express derailed near Raghunathpur Railway Station in Buxar district of Bihar killing 4 and injuring more than 70.

On 29 October 2023 the Visakhapatnam-Rayagada passenger train derailed after colliding with the Visakhapatnam-Palasa passenger train near Kottavalasa Junction railway station in Vizianagaram district, Andhra Pradesh killing at least 14 and injuring 50.

Earlier, on 19 August 2017 the 18478 Puri–Haridwar Kalinga Utkal Express derailed in Khatauli near Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Killing at least 23 and leaving nearly a hundred injured. This was attributed to track defect.

As recently as on 17 June (today) a freight train hit the Kanchanjunga Express near Phansidewa in West Bengal. 5 people reported dead.

Causes of accidents on Indian Railways:

Enquiries are held in all railway accidents and causes that are established range from track defects, signal-failure, drivers-ignoring-signal, failure-of-interlocking, passengers-smoking-in train, to short-circuits. Most of the time some junior level staff is penalised, even sacked. Sometimes senior level functionaries are also transferred as in the case of the Balasore accident. But never is a management failure acknowledged, some of which could be poor training, departments working in silos, incompetent procurement system, ineffective inspections and supervision, insensitive human resources policies, total lack of communication with the field-staff apart from reprimands, obstructionist trade unions, senior officers occupying the same positions for long and so on. Even the much acclaimed administrative reforms, the introduction of a single service cadre, the Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS), which apparently picks the best of the best brains to head administrative units, has failed to make any impact. Loose statements like the “Kavach” safety system will eliminate accidents are made at the highest level. How Kavach will eliminate cases of faulty wiring, fires in coaches, poor track-maintenance, rolling stock defects is left unsaid. How multi-billion-rupee investments will improve the training, motivation, pride and morale of staff and officers is never discussed before committing such expenses.

Action at the Top:

Boeing has taken some measures to penalise the top management - Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun is stepping down along with several top-level executives. Boeing Chair, Larry Kellner, has announced that he will not run for re-election, and Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stan Deal is also stepping down.

#Safety #Boeing # Boeing 737MAx #Railways #Balasore