Rail supply chain volatility: Unipart sets out the CBSC shift

Rail supply chain volatility is no longer something operators can treat as background noise. In a tougher operating climate, supply chain complexity in rail has become a defining challenge — and, managed well, a route to competitive edge rather than just another cost-saving exercise.

That was the message Darren Leigh, Chief Executive Officer of Unipart, shared at the recent AusRAIL PLUS conference in Melbourne, which drew more than 7000 delegates and visitors, as reported by Rail Express. He said CEOs are contending with constant unpredictability, and that rail is uniquely exposed because assets, maintenance and logistics are tightly connected.

Unipart’s vantage point, Leigh said, has been shaped by more than 50 years as a performance improvement partner to mission-critical organisations — designing, making, moving and improving components in customers’ supply chains. With operations in 22 countries and customers in more than 100, he described a “watchtower” view of pressures that keep surfacing across markets, from Sydney to London and from New York to Dubai.

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Geopolitical friction can overturn proven trade routes and sourcing strategies overnight. Extreme weather events are increasing. At the same time, post-pandemic shifts in how people move — and how freight is prioritised — are changing what supply networks are being asked to handle.

Boom-and-bust investment and the cost of instability

Leigh said the biggest headwind for rail is the industry’s endless cycle of boom and bust rail funding. In his account, stop-start investment blocks long-term planning and nudges organisations toward short-term maintenance choices instead of long-term asset renewal. Over time, he warned, it can also contribute to a brain drain as skilled professionals look for greater stability elsewhere.

From reactive supply to predictive maintenance supply chain automation

Leigh said the operator-supplier conversation is shifting. Instead of “Can you supply this part?”, the question is increasingly “How can you help us improve our performance and navigate this volatility?” He framed that change as a move away from a transactional supplier-customer model toward strategic partnership models built around performance.

A key driver, he suggested, is that simply managing failure after it happens is no longer sustainable. Assets do not operate in isolation; they sit inside an ecosystem of power, environment and logistics. When a rolling stock component fails and stops a train, the knock-on effects spread fast: passengers miss connections, schedules unravel, depots fall out of sync, and suppliers scramble to respond to unplanned needs. In those moments, valuable time and asset availability are lost — especially when monitoring and maintenance are not aligned.

Operators, Leigh said, are looking for data-driven insights to “find the missing pieces” and to build systems that can anticipate failure rather than merely react to it.

Condition-Based Supply Chain in rail: turning insight into action

Predictive maintenance is already familiar across the sector, using tools and technology to predict failures before they happen. Leigh said the next step is to turn those predictive maintenance insights into automated action across the entire service chain — what he called the Condition-Based Supply Chain (CBSC).

In that model, data is streamed in real time from assets, and artificial intelligence predicts not only if a failure is likely, but when and why. That prediction then triggers the wider system so the right part, the right tool and the right engineer are deployed precisely when and where needed. Leigh argued this is how the supply chain moves from being treated as a cost centre to becoming a source of rail supply chain resilience.

He described CBSC as a complete loop: sensor to insight, then into logistics, and through to component refurbishment. The benefits, he said, include cutting costs by eliminating unnecessary maintenance and downtime, improving reliability, and strengthening sustainability through optimised energy use and longer asset life.

Leigh pointed to Unipart’s work with Northern Trains in the United Kingdom as an example of real-time condition monitoring producing measurable results. Unipart deployed remote condition monitoring across the customer’s Porterbrook Class 170 Turbostar fleet, using sensor technology to continuously track indicators such as oil pressure and coolant levels — a rollout also outlined by Porterbrook. He said issues were detected earlier and diagnosed more precisely, leading to fewer faults, reduced maintenance time and increased availability as assets spent more time in service.

To show how logistics, MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) and supply can work together, he also cited a project with Network Rail, which owns, operates, maintains and develops railway infrastructure in England, Scotland and Wales. Unipart supplied new point machines, and then created an end-to-end refurbishment process that re-engineered old point machines in-house. Leigh said this delivered a 50 per cent cost saving versus buying new units, a 15-month warranty that was longer than a new machine’s warranty, and improved availability because components could be returned to service quickly.

Culture and collaboration behind rail supply chain resilience and volatility

Leigh stressed that technology is not a cure-all. He described CBSC as a framework, but one that still needs strong foundations — which for Unipart come down to culture and collaboration.

“At Unipart, we call culture ‘The Unipart Way’,” he said, describing it as a proprietary business system and a culture of continuous improvement built over five decades. He argued that it empowers colleagues from the shop floor to the boardroom to challenge the norm and continuously drive improvements — helping the company not only embrace new technology but also pioneer it, while partnering with customers to build the skills needed to support it.

On collaboration, Leigh said the rail industry must move away from short-term, transactional procurement if it aims to become resilient, sustainable and connected. He urged long-term partnership models that foster trust, share risk and create genuine win-win scenarios. In his view, that requires open data sharing, long-term commitment, and the courage to innovate together — a theme also echoed in broader AusRAIL PLUS 2025 discussions covered by Railway Supply.

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