To date, Bentley Optram has enabled MARTA to reduce by more than 70 percent the time it spends analyzing automated track geometry and exceptions and verifying track exceptions or defects. In recognition of these and other savings from its use of Bentley Optram, MARTA received a BE Award of Excellence for "Best Return on Innovation" from Bentley COO Malcolm Walter at the recent BE Conference in London.
MARTA's Track and Structures division began relying on the Bentley Optram solution for rail condition analysis and planning last year. The system interoperates directly with MARTA's enterprise asset management system to automatically generate work orders and capture progress, history, and cost information for reuse in future decision making. With the ability to practice proactive maintenance, MARTA Track and Structures division foresees dramatic reductions in maintenance and renewal costs as well as track defects.
Said Tim Elsberry, acting assistant director of MARTA's Track and Structures division, "In the maintenance industry, it's well documented that reactive maintenance costs two to four times more than proactive maintenance. By having advanced planning tools and functions, maintenance organizations can reduce reactive work and increase planned outage time. Whereas reactive maintenance is often the result of a failure or downtime, planned maintenance is performed in the off-peak hours and minimizes the impact on customers.
"Bentley Optram provides the Track and Structures team with powerful planning tools and allows us to address conditions proactively. We foresee achieving a 20 percent reduction in maintenance and renewal costs."
The Bentley Optram product suite provides track managers with a concise view of the rail infrastructure through digital track charts, rail assets, and attributes, and it combines information regarding system performance and maintenance activity over time. The Track and Structures division has been able to eliminate manual tasks that provide no value-add and improve work processes by converting data into quality information.
Bentley Optram was put into place as part of Phase I of MARTA's Business Transformation Program (BTP), launched in October 2006. The BTP, which encompasses a reengineering of business processes and operations, along with the replacement of multiple legacy information technology systems, is slated for completion in 2008.
Phase I of BTP implemented a highly integrated system involving components of Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, MAXIMUS Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) software, and the Bentley Optram product suite. This initial phase was delivered on time and on budget. The integrated system streamlines business processes and provides higher productivity and increased efficiencies.
Tightly integrated with MAXIMUS via its EAM Interface, the Bentley Optram product suite provides a visual reference as to where work is scheduled and has been performed. The system also interfaces with track geometry information, providing the ability to visualize all channels of the rail telemetry data - a previously unrecognized capability. Allowing for proactive maintenance decisions, the system increases safety and reliability, and ultimately improves the ridership experience for MARTA's rail customers.
For more information about Bentley Optram, go to www.bentley.com/optram.
About the BE Awards of Excellence and BE Conference
The BE Awards of Excellence honor the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the world's infrastructure. These projects set benchmarks and showcase the imagination and technical mastery of the organizations that created them.
The BE Conference, which consistently scores a 99 percent attendee satisfaction rating, is a once-a-year learning opportunity for Bentley user organizations offering professional training, technology updates, keynotes, and best practice sharing. At these sessions, attendees better themselves, better their organizations, and better the ways they can improve the world's infrastructure. For more information, visit www.be.org.
About Bentley
Bentley Systems, Incorporated provides software for the lifecycle of the world's infrastructure. The company's comprehensive portfolio for the building, plant, civil, and geospatial verticals spans architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) and operations. With revenues now surpassing $400 million annually, and more than 2400 colleagues globally, Bentley is the leading provider of AEC software to the Engineering News-Record Top Design Firms and major owner-operators, and was named the world's No. 2 provider of GIS/geospatial software solutions in a recent Daratech research study.
To receive Bentley press releases as they are issued, visit www.bentley.com/bentleywire. For more information, visit www.bentley.com. To view a copy of Bentley's April 2007 Annual Report online, go to www.bentley.com/April2007annualreport.
Bentley, the "B" logo, BE, and Optram are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Contact:
Bentley Systems, Incorporated
Ron Kuhfeld, +1 610 321 6493
Email Contact
