Non-Conformity Management in a CENELEC Governed Project : Digital and Integrated Systems (D&IS), Alstom

Abstract: In the mid-1990s, the European Union started to implement a union-wide,standardised signalling system, called European Rail Traffic Management System(ERTMS). This thesis has been developed alongside and targeted for a developmentproject such as the ERTMS system. The Comité Européen de NormalisationElectrotechnique (CENELEC) standards have been adopted by various transportauthorities to support and guide the safety processes of the signalling systems’development and design. These standards split the development of the products inthree levels: Generic Product (GP), Generic Application (GA) and Specific Application(SA). As a result of this development split, the errors encountered during the laterstages of development often experience an undesired and extended turnaround timebefore they are rectified. The aim of this thesis has been to determine reasons for thishigh turnaround time at Alstom and to propose corrective measures that could increasethe efficiency of the NCR management process adopted by the company. Data, from non-conformity reports (NCRs), has been analysed to obtain keyperformance indicators (KPIs) which have been discussed with employees whowork closely with the system and processes. The results from the data analysisand interviews have revealed issues in the NCR management process, the NCRmanagement system tool and input from the customer’s side. The results from thisresearch indicate that knowledge obtained from the fields of requirements engineering,software development life-cycle models (SDLC) and process-optimisation could beused without extensive additional effort to reduce the turnaround time in rectifyingerrors and optimise the process.