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Location:
UK
Sector:
Transport
AMCL has worked with Rail for London Crossrail (RfL Crossrail) to help them to develop and gain an understanding of the Business Landscape they will be operating and maintaining when they become Infrastructure Manager.
Crossrail, Europe’s largest infrastructure project, is a £15Bn railway linking existing mainline and new subterranean metro infrastructure to establish a new East-West route across London. The new railway will provide key links from Reading in the West to Heathrow, the City of London and Canary Wharf to Shenfield in the East.
From improving journey times across London, to easing congestion and offering better connections, Crossrail will change the way people travel around the capital. Crossrail will increase London’s rail capacity by 10%, with the route bringing 1.5 million more people within a 45-minute commute of London’s major employment centers.
RfL Crossrail is the start-up organization charged with operating and maintaining the route. RfL Crossrail is responsible for defining an organization, necessary business processes and information strategies to become the Infrastructure Manager for the railway when it opens. This will include interaction with key stakeholders (Network Rail, Transport for London, London Underground, MTR and the traveling public). RfL Crossrail represents a complex business model, including:
To drive the development of its emerging business model, RfL Crossrail commissioned the development of a ‘Rich Picture’ graphic, the objectives being to provide a visualization that clearly describes the RfL Crossrail business landscape, its stakeholders, overall management system and its goals in managing Crossrail. The picture was targeted at engaging internal and external stakeholders to ensure there was clarity about the RfL Crossrail business model, its common business drivers, and to provide an understanding of the asset base and business structure.
RfL Crossrail wished to adopt good practice in the definition of its business landscape, with alignment to relevant global standards, such as ISO 55001, and good practice guidance from bodies such as the Institute of Asset Management.
The key perceived benefit of the Rich Picture’s development is the engagement, dialogue and consensus with both external stakeholders and RfL Crossrail employees across multiple functions and information channels.
Having won the commission based on its extensive experience and knowledge of the Crossrail project and other mainline and metro railway organizations worldwide, AMCL proposed a highly structured development process that ensured clear and effective stakeholder engagement and buy-in throughout to define and visualize the future business model.
AMCL established an initial ISO 55001 compliant baseline for the RfL Crossrail business model based on our extensive understanding of best practices globally, and a development process that included three distinct stakeholder engagement phases, each facilitated by AMCL with key inputs, methodologies and objectives for each phase defined and managed by AMCL:
The Rich Picture or as we call it now the Business Landscape has been very positively received by the various departments within [RfL] Crossrail. AMCL has provided us with their active involvement in its development from the outset. Our stakeholders have a real sense of ownership of the Business Landscape, so the buy-in, adoption and use within the various teams has occurred naturally. The Business Landscape Diagram has been issued internally and the core use is for training and communication. We have been able to use it to provide new starters, stakeholders across the rail industry and our suppliers with an overview of [RfL] Crossrail. This includes how we will Operate and Maintain the railway in the future. The next stage is to use the tool as part of the SharePoint solution, which we will be implementing for our Safety Management System. AMCL provided consistent collaboration in organizing and developing the workshops. The information gathered during these workshops, provided the foundation and future development of content for the diagram. The workshops were a great forum for extracting information from key stakeholders and AMCL was very proactive during the process. As [RfL Crossrail] is a newly forming organization, a lot of information was held within departmental teams. AMCL brought everyone together to extract the information and during these workshops there was fantastic energy and creativity in the room.
Although the diagram began as the RfL [Crossrail] vision, with AMCL’s help, it quickly became apparent that it could be used as an internal communication and training tool. Since completion, it has been briefed to every team and clearly outlines how [RfL Crossrail] will manage its business. With help from AMCL, we have developed a detailed script for the diagram which can be tailored for presenters. We have aspirations to turn the diagram into an eLearning tool for training and inducting. It is quickly becoming the Rail for London Crossrail Brand.
“The Business Landscape Diagram has been a resounding success at [RfL] Crossrail. We have buy in at Director level now and we envisage that this will be an extremely useful aide as the organisation matures and evolves over the next 3 years.”
AMCL provided consistent collaboration in organizing and developing the workshops. The information gathered during these workshops, provided the foundation and future development of content for the diagram. The workshops were a great forum for extracting information from key stakeholders and AMCL was very proactive during the process. As [RfL Crossrail] is a newly forming organization, a lot of information was held within departmental teams. AMCL brought everyone together to extract the information and during these workshops there was fantastic energy and creativity in the room.
