Frauscher looks back on recent achievements and outlines plans for continued success
Looking back at this incredible milestone, which projects and initiatives have led to this success?
Michael Thiel: Particularly the second half of 2023 was a very strong period for Frauscher, which led to this exceptional order intake that gives us a good base for the upcoming years. There was not really one single project which led to this success that I could mention now, but rather a global contribution of projects from all over the railway world. Furthermore, the level of manufacturing in our company is continuously growing in both, quantity, and quality with many plans in 2024 to further increase production. This is also supported by our manufacturing location in India which is showing very good results and we plan to develop this even further in the upcoming years. Another achievement I am particularly proud of is the ISO27001 certificate, which we received in 2023 showcasing our high-quality standards and professionality.
There are many exciting projects also lined up, for instance with our long-established partner and customer SNCF in France where we are aiming to supply a first delivery for the HPMV line in 2024. We also had considerable success in locations such as China where the Fenghuang Maglev is the first maglev train in the world to use the FAdC®. Our presence is also being further expanded in North America with many successfully completed projects in metro applications and yards which have led to greater operational efficiency and service uptime. Of course, India also has to be mentioned – here Frauscher solutions are used across many railway segments to ensure safe and reliable rail operations. One such project is Adra Yard, with a coverage of 139 counting heads and 97 track sections.
What counts most are our long-standing and successful customer relationships which we established all over the world. Every single positive customer feedback we get, reminds me that Frauscher as an organisation is on the right track. Our transparency and how we respond to difficult situations is acknowledged by our customers and this is a great part of our market position - in the future, we wish to firmly continue this legacy.
What challenges will Frauscher face in 2024 and what is the vision for the future?
Michael Thiel: Of course, we are still looking at a lot of uncertainty, external influences, and geopolitical challenges all around the world. A globalised economy is the foundation of our success, as all global markets and smooth economic processes highly influence the success of Frauscher. Keeping a leading market position and having a global organisation which is present in all markets and seen as a very reliable and transparent partner by our customers, will allow us to not only maintain but also grow our global presence. Also, increasing the manufacturing volume in India will help us to establish two independent but full-scale manufacturing sites addressing different economic areas in the world.
With respect to our future vision and plans, I would like to mention our progress regarding EULYNX. Our teams are continuously working on the expansion of our portfolio to support the EULYNX initiative which of course carries many benefits for the customers, mainly in terms of greater interoperability and the reduction in installation and maintenance costs of signalling equipment. Further enhancement of our portfolio is planned to support the EULYNX approach with the TDS interface for BaseLine 4.2 currently in the pipeline and BL 2.3 & 3.5 already successfully completed and in operation.
Likewise, new developments are also planned in areas such as cloud-based diagnostic systems. In this area, we have already had the successful go-live of the Frauscher Insights data platform, which is essentially a cloud-based monitoring and diagnostics system that allows operators to bundle and enrich data from rail operations, making it available via various applications. I am really glad to say that we already have several installations of this cloud-based solution in place, and we have recently received the product approval in the UK and commissioned the system in Paddington Station.
The topic of data transmission is definitely also in focus. Here we are talking about technology which enables the exchange of vital and non-vital information for various applications. This is a highly available and robust solution with low life cycle costs and simple configuration, which makes it very appealing to many operators. As mentioned previously, there will also be market specific adaptations of this solution, especially for the Indian market, for fail safe data transmission.
No vision of the future could be complete without a new pipeline of solutions which represent the latest advancements in innovation, in line with customer needs. An example of this is the Frauscher FTVS system which was developed on the basis of customer requirements for a non-vital axle counter solution with Frauscher like quality and reliability but lower costs. The successful launch of this solution and the demand from rail operators in the United States has been very encouraging so far. Furthermore, the development of our new sensor generation is also in progress.
Regarding both, the short- and long-term future, there are many initiatives which we are currently focusing on, even outside of the development of new solutions. For instance, we are planning to expand our global workforce by up to 25% in key strategic areas including R&D and digitalisation to bring top tier talent into our organisation. Likewise, we are utilising the latest and most cutting-edge technologies including Artificial Intelligence, which we can use in various areas of our organisation, such as software engineering. We have some big plans in this area and aim to develop the AI competencies across our entire organisation through establishing AI ambassadors and utilising AI training courses. Furthermore, the development of our own AI based solutions such as FrauscherGPT is also a part of this, with the aim of creating a comprehensive AI resource that will help with various tasks. The Frauscher Data Hive also plays an important role in our transformative efforts since it acts as a central data warehouse and a connection point for all product-related data, linking to all available databases and data sources.
Working with such technologies will be essential for us as we aim to expand our presence into new markets. In fact, this is the reason why we currently reinvest approximately 10% of sales flow into R&D and research. We also aim to further expand our agile working methods to be closer to the customer, creating shorter iteration cycles which will reduce our time to market.
Clearly the way to maintain our success lies in preserving our strong market presence, increase our global growth and develop and execute a future-proof strategy to expand our solutions portfolio and service offerings.
What are some of the planned initiatives for 2024 you are particularly looking forward to?
Michael Thiel: As mentioned we have introduced new solutions such as Frauscher Insights, our intelligent data platform, as well as Frauscher Pulse, a service offering program which supports our customers during the whole lifecycle of our products. Frauscher Insights also plays a great role within our service offering, carrying the possibility to collect data received from train detection and making it available via various applications. This is a new business for us as an organisation and we plan to heavily invest in these services. Putting greater focus on predictive and preventive maintenance to ensure maximum availability of railway operations has high priority on our agenda, and we have already made significant progress in this area.
