Search results for: 'Train Maintenance'

The case study describes the experience of Javier Rutz as operations director and later as general manager of NERTUS, a leading company in the sector of railway maintenance services in Spain.

The company was founded by Spanish rail operator Renfe and Siemens, a leading train manufacturing company, to provide maintenance services for Siemens’ trains. From the beginning, NERTUS stands out for the high quality of its services and its great capacity for continuous improvement.
Shortly after its Foundation, Javier Rutz joined the company, first as director of operations and later as general manager. During this period, the philosophy of continuous improvement reached its maximum splendor.

After concluding a highly successful professional stage, Javier Rutz leaves the company and asks himself which is the best way to exploit his experience for his professional future: should he continue as a senior executive in another company or undertake a different challenge through his own company to provide consulting services that offer “the design and implementation of management models based on continuous improvement, with a strategic perspective?” 

Aims to identify what are the key strategic and organizational elements that allow the successful implementation of a continuous improvement methodology. These strategic and organizational variables, such as customer orientation, company culture, leadership, transparency of information, etc., are shown throughout the case in a general way and in some examples presented by J. Rutz on NERTUS.

Case A describes the origins and functioning of LEES in 2013. This is a program launched by José María Pérez González, a Spanish social entrepreneur, in order to address the problem of unemployment in Spain. Mirroring his former social enterprise (Fundación Santamaria La Real), for which he had been nominated Ashoka fellow in 2008, the LEES are a series of accelerators aimed at the unemployed. Designed to make up for the shortcoming of governmental employment policies, where unemployed are passive and isolated, the LEES program follows a holistic approach that fosters the proactiveness of individuals, leverages their skills and increases their visibility. It adopts a collaborative, supportive model, based on people and their capacity for teamwork. Participants in the accelerators organize their activities for an average of 6 months and are led by a coach. The program also strives to involve most actors of the society (municipalities and governmental institutions, private local firms, NGOs, individual volunteers, local training centers, co-working or entrepreneurship centers, universities, etc.) into shaping a global solution to unemployment. Although they are overseen by the LEES central office, accelerators function as quasi-autonomous entities and take up the roles of project management, maintenance, student selection and appointment of functional committees.