Western Railway is continuously striving to promote digitalization to transform India into a digitally empowered society and is taking every possible step to accomplish the digitalization mission of Indian Railways. In continuation to this endeavour, Shri P. C. Sharma – Member (Traction & Rolling Stock) launched the User Depot Module (UDM) of material transactions, which was rolled out digitally from W. Rly’s Mahalaxmi Workshop on 28th September, 2020.
- This achievement has been made possible due to the inspiring leadership & valuable support of Shri Alok Kansal – General Manager of Western Railway.
- The idea and need of digitalization of storekeeping at user end was first evolved at Western Railway under the dynamic guidance of GM Shri Kansal & Principal Chief Materials Manager Shri Jyoti Prakash Pandey during the Covid period as opportunities for improvements.
- According to a press release issued by Shri Sumit Thakur- Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Rly, the User Depot Module was launched for the first time over W. Rly’s Mahalaxmi Workshop.
- There are around 450 user depot consignees which will be on-boarded with User Depot Module by December 2020 on Western Railway.
- Thereafter, the system will be implemented shortly across all Zones of Indian Railways.
- Shri Thakur informed that Railways’ supply chain up to Stores Depots has already been digitized however activities at user end are being done manually.
- Implementation of this system will bring in transformational changes from manual working to digital working with real time transactions and online information exchange among all stakeholders.
- This will ensure digitalization of the complete supply chain, including user depots.
- The system will facilitate economy, efficiency and transparency besides improved asset management.
- It will also ensure improved service level and satisfaction to customers.
- Shri Thakur further stated that Railway Board had nominated Western Railway for undertaking the trials of this system.
- It is worth mentioning that this system was suggested by W. Rly as a tool for saving in Expenditure along with online dynamic AAC reviews for every stock & non – stock items.
- This module has been developed in collaboration with Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).
- It is pertinent to mention here that Mahalaxmi Workshop was the first Workshop to be declared as “Zero Scrap Workshop” over entire Indian Railways in July 2019.
- Now, it has added another feather to its cap, by being the first workshop over Indian Railway to implement UDM.
Source: Western Railway-Press Release | Image Credit (representational): North Central Railway
