This research aims to analyse, evaluate and rank the maintenance strategy practised by the train operating companies, specifically by the rolling stock maintenance team. A quantitative method was adopted for data collection. A total of five train operating companies were chosen to participate in a survey that has been carefully designed. The research first identified the maintenance strategy associated with the rolling stock maintenance through systematic literature reviews. Afterwards, six maintenance strategies adopted by the companies were identified. The type of maintenance strategies identified was used to structure the survey questionnaire. Judgemental sampling was utilised for sampling purposes. Finally, the data collected from the survey were analysed using an importance index to complete the ranking analysis. The research discovered that corrective and preventive maintenance strategies are the most commonly adopted among the five Malaysian train operating companies. This study also highlighted the factors that future studies should consider to establish predictive cost models for rolling stock maintenance.

The rolling stock might function at an optimum level in reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety with comprehensive maintenance. The past decade has seen rapid development in the management of maintenance costs in many sectors such as the automotive and aviation industry. However, there is a lack in a number of studies focusing on rolling stock maintenance costs. This article provides comprehensive knowledge on the rolling stock maintenance cost. Recently, the research found no specific literature reviews that focus on typical rolling stock maintenance costs. This paper attempts to review, identify and discuss the influential costs involved in rolling stock maintenance. This research systematically reviews and classifies a substantial number of published papers and suggests a classification of specific cost categories according to rolling stock needs. The results revealed that 27 variables have contributed to the rolling stock maintenance costs. The highest among the influential costs are 13.8% spare part cost, 11% life cycle cost, 6.4% preventive maintenance cost, and 4.6% for the workforce, corrective maintenance, and cost of ownership, respectively. The interrelationship between influential costs and their effects on rolling stock costs is further discussed. More importantly, the paper is intended to provide a comprehensive view of influential costs affecting rolling stock maintenance and give useful references for personnel working in the industry as well as researchers. This research has highlighted the possibility of future major studies to minimize the identified maintenance cost and industry to optimize its operational cost.

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Manufacturing industries face numerous challenges, such as reducing their energy consumption. Minimising energy usage is one of the initiatives towards sustainable manufacturing. Many researches have studied the surface quality of machined part, but studies on energy consumption during machining process are limited. Different cutting paths operations may influence energy consumption during machining. The objective of this research was to investigate the effect of cutting tool paths and parameters on energy consumption during machining. Aluminium 6061 alloy was face-milled using high-speed steel tool with different tool paths, namely, morphed spiral, parallel and spiral paths. The design of experiment technique was applied to optimise the experimental work, and response surface methodology was used to analyse the experimental result. Results showed that feed rate is the most influential parameter on the energy consumption of machining. Machining energy models were also generated for morphed spiral, parallel and spiral cutting paths. The R 2 of each model was higher than 0.92, which indicates that the model equations are applicable in predicting the energy consumption of a milling operation.

The applicationof electroplated diamond in ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding can be a candidate to replace the manual mirror finishing of the stainless-steel surface and the ability to characterize the tool and work surfaces is important for understanding the tool-work interaction during the grinding process. In this study, an ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding on stainless steel surface using the electroplated diamond tool is performed for the tool-work surface interaction diagnostic. The experiment used constant machining parameters, leaving the electroplated diamond tool as the only input variable. The experiment produces nine tool-work pairs for the analysis. A combination of the reversal method and areal surface metrology is introduced to capture and prepare the topography data for characterization. The analysis results show that the combination of the reversal method and areal surface metrology can be used for the electroplated diamond tool working surface characterization in explaining its effect on the ultrasonic vibration-assisted grinding of stainless-steel surface for a mirror finish.