How the Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group is driving forward railway construction with investment, innovation and communication.
To support its clients as well as possible, the management at Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group looks to the three pillars of innovation, investment and communication. Garry Thür, Johann Grossalber and Christoph Mathis are responsible for these strategic building blocks. In conversation, the tree members of the RSRG management together take a look at the future of the retail market.
What does it take to be innovative and therefore successful?
Mathis
To be able to offer the right products and solutions, we have to know what is needed. We can only find that out through good, effective customer relations. This is essential. And here we benefit from our decentralised organisational structure, in which solutions can be found and tested, together with our clients, directly on site, i.e. on the rails. Since challenges in Australia are fairly often quite different from those in Canada or Europe.
Thür
What naturally helps very much in a family-run traditional company such as ours, is the clear commitment of the owners. Year after year, we invest large sums in innovation projects, despite the risks involved. We have belief, then, but also the structures, responsibilities and process.
Grossalber
I sense this commitment in every single person at RSRG. When I started here at the beginning of this year, I was impressed by the ambitions and the commitment of the employees, as well as the many initiatives in all areas and markets, which have driven forward, for example, the rise in productivity.
What is RSRG’s most successful innovation so far? What's next?
Thür
Two developments come to mind: slab track and renewal of points. A slab track example: As one of the first suppliers, we were able to develop a process with which we could noticeably increase the installation speed and therefore the cost-effectiveness of this rail system. And, of course, this development is ongoing, currently with the focus on process digitalisation and industrialisation.
Mathis
We’ve been working really hard on this recently. So that, with the help of a digital construction site, we can visualise for our clients a number of scenarios for construction processes and machine deployment, simulate costs in advance and then together develop the best solution. There is still much to be done here, and we look forward to it.
How are you going to ensure that, given the pressure for innovation, the core business and, above all, the client base will not be neglected?
Grossalber
They are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary: For the previously mentioned points renewal, for example, we developed a mechanised method, unique in the world, by which we have made points replacement substantially more productive. And, step-by-step, we are adding digital applications to further accelerate planning and implementation. This meets rail operators’ basic need around the globe: availability of their infrastructure to be as interruption-free as possible.
Thür
It stands us in good stead that our commitment, perhaps surprisingly, is focussed on clients only as a second step. Our aim is to further develop the railway into the most competitive means of transport of the future. An aim incidentally, and here we come full circle, that our clients pursue as well. Therefore we are certain that our innovation management is fully oriented to local and long-distance railways, freight lines and private infrastructures.
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