the bean counters concerned weren't interested in the technicalities. All they were interested in was the cost of a widget, not the value of it or its function. The spreadsheet ruled.
Thanks for confirming it was you and your attitude.
That's when you need to add long-term maintance and failure costs in the costs that are shown to the bean counters
.And further complicated by which company we are considering, the TOC or the lessor. If the lessor paid and chose to add the cost to the leasing costs then it would appear in P&L's for the next few years. I doubt for such a small item they would choose to increase the value of the asset on the Balance Sheet. If the TOC was paying then there wouldn't be an asset for a value to be increased by.
Surely the costs of adding wsp would be covered by reduced late running and less wear on wheelsets/ track and reduced fuel usage??
there were 72 of us in the department so no, it wasn't just me who felt that way. Here's the main incident. The workshop kettle blew up so a replacement was sourced. It was a quick boil 3kw and cost £7.99. He blew his top, called a meeting of all 72 staff, at a cost of around £10k, to ask why we hadn't sourced a standard boil 2.4kw costing £6.99. So in future all purchasing had to go through the ordering clerk/ess, which it did anyway, and if he/she could identify a cheaper part/item/widget then it would be substituted. They were given the decision-making power to overrule on a subject they weren't qualified in. History teaches us this is not a good way of doing things.
it was put to me at the start that the accountancy team was there to assist us in the preparation and presentation of any business case. A few were very supportive, but most were not. The kettle story in post #11289 summed it all up. I recall getting a scheme bounced because the payback period was too short- too good to be true so it can't be right- total lack of understanding of what was happening. It was one of those no-brainer schemes that cost us a lot by not doing it. C'est la vie.
agree with everything you say here, but the key point is "should be no friction". We did not have good people, no amount of explanation got past their mistaken belief that there was some better, cheaper way of achieving the desired result- if there was, we'd already have proposed it. Led to a very hostile working environment.
How does departmental meeting manage to cost 10k?
I assume you mean 170416-420 which haven't been refurbished. They are still due to go off lease when enough HSTs are delivered. I wouldn't say they needed serious maintenance but they do retain their original interiors which are getting shabby. Everything still works though.
Absolutely - sky high running costs, no need for the extra seating capacity and Scotrail will be operating a reduced timetable easily within the capability of 158s and 170s. Oh well.
which ought to give the maintenance team a bit of breathing space to get the HSTs some tlc.
Nonsense I'm afraid!
More fool Scotrail then. If they can't put together a reduced timetable that temporarily takes the HSTs off the road then they're flushing money down the drain.
Fair point on maintenance and knowledge.
They’d be best rotating the entire fleet around so that it still gets used. MTU power cars have a liking for losing their coolant if stood for any length of time.
