ARA’s General Manager – Supply Chain and Diversity, Natalie Currey, met with several members in Melbourne last week, and also attended Alstom’s Supplier Forum.  

The forum actively engaged with over 120 supplier partners, all contributing to the delivery of their rollingstock, signalling, and services projects across Australia and New Zealand. The forum provided a valuable update on the progress of these various initiatives. A key theme of the day was the growing importance of localising capabilities and fostering strong collaboration to drive innovation. These efforts are essential to developing new ways of working that can accelerate project delivery and meet the rising expectations around service reliability and availability.  

Congratulations to all the suppliers recognised with Best Supplier Awards – in particular, ARA members Frauscher Sensor Technology and Dellner – Train Connection Systems. 

While in Melbourne, Natalie had the opportunity to meet with the following members: 

  • Andrew Engineering Pty Ltd, where Daniel Fabiyanic and his team have been servicing operators across Australia and New Zealand from their site in West Heidelberg, Victoria, for several decades. This includes wheel measurement systems, turntables, bogie exchange systems and test stands, railway lifting jacks and wheel lathes.  
  • Rob Durling and Avinash Rain at Klüber Lubrication, who are responding to market demand and have created new lubrication products that facilitate longer maintenance intervals and reduced maintenance costs, whether that be for bogie components, doors or switches. Incredibly, they have somewhere in the order of 2,500 different lubricant products, including those that are environmental compatible and rapidly biodegradable. 
  • Interface Rail Engineering, a growing local consultant specialising in rail infrastructure management, operations interface and specialist services to project delivery authorities, government authorities and rail operators across Australia.  
  • Paul Bennet at Egis Australia and New Zealand, who are growing their local capabilities and service offerings to support the delivery of better project outcomes for their clients.