Close collaboration
3Squared Managing Director TIM JONES reveals how the traditional customer/supplier relationship is giving way to a new era of closer collaboration in the UK rail sector
How 3Squared is changing the traditional customer/supplier relationship.
“Collaboration hasn’t just benefited our business - 3Squared was positively built on it, and it has become part of our DNA.” This is the view of 3Squared Managing Director Tim Jones on the award-winning technology consultancy he co-founded with Commercial Director James Fox in Sheffield 16 years ago.
Having begun life as a two-man digital and creative agency, 3Squared’s rapid growth to become one of the rail sector’s leading software solutions providers was to be underpinned by taking a more collaborative approach with clients.
Recognising that forming longer term partnerships with clients was the best way for it to respond to the changing needs of the sectors in which it operates, the company’s ethos was well received in the business community and 3Squared soon required larger premises and a much bigger team.
With a growing portfolio of software solutions for major blue chip clients in the construction sector, including Skanska and Costain, entering the rail market seemed a logical next step.
But with little knowledge of the industry, Jones and Fox once again adopted a more collaborative approach by seeking a forwardthinking client to partner with until 3Squared could establish a firmer foothold, and build up a more detailed understanding of the problems it was trying to solve.
Jones explains: “I say that collaboration is in our DNA because our entrance into UK rail was born of it and we recognise that to continue being successful, it is the way forward. We work very closely with clients on creating a solution to their problems because we think it’s much better to leverage their knowledge of the sector in order to build the best products possible, rather than us doing it in isolation.
“We did this for the first time in 2010 with Stagecoach to try and transfer our management competency programme from construction into rail. We said to them ‘we have the competency but you have the knowledge - let’s work together to create something for the industry’.”
3Squared’s collaboration with Stagecoachowned train operating companies (TOCs) East Midlands Trains and South West Trains, plus freight operating company (FOC) GB Railfreight, would eventually yield the first of its flagship RailSmart suite of products in 2014.
RailSmart EDS (employee development system) would also earn 3Squared a Queen’s Award for innovation due to the safety and cost benefits that stem from its ability to reduce the administrative burden of compliance, and to manage competencies such as route and traction knowledge while being integrated with crew-planning tools.
The RailSmart platform has grown since 2014 to help streamline other automated processes, such as document distribution (RailSmart DOCS), to improve the visibility of operational information and to help geographically dispersed teams work together more effectively.
Such has been the success of the RailSmart platform that 55% of all TOCs now use at least one of its products and almost 12,000 staff competencies are now managed by RailSmart EDS, helping the rail sector to become the largest part of 3Squared’s business.
Clients include not just TOCs and FOCs but also Network Rail and companies from other parts of the supply chain, such as Bombardier and Colas Rail.
3Squared also works closely with rail standards body RSSB, which awarded it a customer excellence award in 2013 for its station wayfinding concept ‘Station Master’.
RSSB has since awarded funding to 3Squared to develop an innovative software solution that helps improve disabled access to the railway as part of RSSB’s Rail Accessibility Challenge.
The company is also closely collaborating with the Meteorological Office to develop a predictive tool for low rail-adhesion sites, which contains a crowdsourcing element that encourages drivers coming off a shift to report locations where they’ve encountered poor adhesion.
According to Jones, partnerships such as these are becoming more commonplace in the rail industry as consensus continues to shift among major players towards more joined-up working as the best means to reduce cost and increase innovation.
He points to Network Rail in particular, which is embarking on a new procurement strategy for Control Period 6 (April 2019-
The traditional model has been broken-collaboration will be the wayforward. Tim Jones, Managing Director, 3Squared
March 2024) that seeks to foster more integrated working with the supply chain.
It will also facilitate larger amounts of thirdparty funding, finance and delivery so that financial benefits and risk are shared more equally between the taxpayer and supply chain.
This could mean trials of new procurement methods and longer term customer/supplier relationships over the next few years, such as NR’s current collaboration with signalling and train control specialist Resonate on the Great Western Main Line, where the Luminate traffic management system has been installed at Resonate’s expense.
If delays are reduced by the system as predicted, then the reduction in compensation paid by NR to train operating companies will be shared between the two parties.
He adds: “To begin with, collaboration was much harder, and many businesses were stuck in the traditional customer/supplier relationship. But in the last three to four years more and more people have realised that we will only see improvements from closer collaboration, and are changing their attitudes accordingly.
“We saw evidence of this in Control Period 5 (April 2014-March 2019) with NR collaborating with Resonate to come up with a new fully funded business model instead of following the traditional route to finding a single-source supplier. That was an early sign of what we’re seeing increasingly today in the pain-and-gain relationships offered by alliances and early contractor involvement.”
Looking ahead to CP6 and NR’s fledgling Digital Railway programme, Jones is hoping that 3Squared will be at the vanguard of the industry’s efforts to increase capacity and reduce operating costs on the network through the deployment of emerging technologies.
The company has, arguably, already begun to do just that, following the success of its latest product in partnership with previous East Coast franchise operator Virgin Trains East Coast ( VTEC), and current operator London North Eastern Railway (LNER).
3Squared’s driver interface application is a familiarisation and training tool for drivers switching from traditional lineside signalling to digital in-cab signalling provided by ETCS (European Train Control System) technology.
It is now being offered free of charge to other operators as NR considers which routes will receive upgraded signalling in CP6.
“There is an inherent belief that nothing is free,” adds Jones. “The app will obviously help raise the profile of the business, but we mainly want to help people understand that it is important to collaborate for the benefit of the wider industry, and not everything costs as much to bring to market as people think.
“What NR is realising too is that given the vast and complex set of systems we have inherited from the Victorians and British Rail, and to tackle 21st-century problems, we need a more joined-up approach. In CP6 the traditional model has been broken - collaboration will be the way forward.
“We’re a digital business and collaborate very closely with clients for the benefit of the wider industry, so we’re looking forward to what CP6 will bring and helping turn Digital Railway into a reality by adding value in that space.”