RSSB member story
The value of SMEs in rail
RSSB caught up with James Brown, MD of Belvoir Rail, to discuss the advantages of SMEs in rail, practical problem solving, and the importance of innovation.
Interview with James Brown of Belvoir Rail
James Brown Managing Director, Belvoir Rail
How did you start your career?
I started my career in the Royal Air Force. I worked as an aircraft electrician, taking care of Harrier jets. I travelled the world ensuring the safety, reliability, and performance of these aircraft, keeping them in operational condition. After 12 years, I left the service and went into sales of electronic equipment to companies that make phones and TVs.
The Belvoir Rail journey started with a chance encounter with a former RAF colleague. He explained that he was now a fleet engineer for a rail operator and had a huge problem: 'Drivers are not taking trains into service because the cabs are not warm enough. There are heaters in the cabs but they are old and inefficient. It’s costing us hundreds of thousands of pounds a year because they’re not taking the trains.’
I wondered if I could use my aircraft electrical background to help with a solution. I was invited to see the cabs, and within three or four weeks I managed to come up with an electrical heater system that we could bolt onto the side of the existing heater. The engineer thought it could work, so I took the design to a local fabricator to get the product made up. It was tested in service over the winter and found to be very effective.
My former colleague said, ‘We need to buy these’, and that is how Belvoir Rail started. I never expected to be in the rail industry at all. To date, we’ve probably sold about 600 of those heaters, including improvements we’ve made over time. Fifteen years ago it was just me. Now there’s 11 of us.
What are the advantages of SMEs?
Compared with larger organisations, small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are more flexible in adapting to market changes and customer requirements. We can respond quickly to shifting demands and adjust our operations accordingly. We can develop customised solutions and tailor our capabilities to customers' specific needs. We also don’t have a complex hierarchy, so we can move at speed. We’ve had examples where a customer has talked about an idea with us and within a week, we’ve had a working prototype for them.
We also bring all sorts of people together—not just the big corporates within the rail industry, but people from other SMEs, universities, and niche specialisms. This drives creativity, fresh perspectives, and out-the-box thinking. For instance, we work with another company, Modux, when integrating software on projects, and we’ve got a great relationship with them. They’re very clever, and like us, they love a challenge.
Why are the characteristics of an SME team important?
We’re passionate about what we do; it’s more than a 9–5 job to us. We’re all on a journey together, we listen to each other’s ideas, and I think everybody has the confidence to speak up and question a new idea if they’re concerned about a particular aspect of it without being worried that they’ll be criticised for doing so.
We're a diverse team with a wide range of backgrounds and experience from multiple industries. Our unique blend of skills enables us to deliver valuable insights, high quality services, and innovative solutions.
You say that an advantage of SMEs is that they can focus on problem solving, not products. What do you mean by this?
We have a problem-solving mindset, which starts with understanding the needs, pain points, and challenges of our customers. By focusing on solving problems rather than products, we are more adaptive to changing markets and evolving customer preferences.
Products can become outdated or easily copied by competitors, but our mindset enables us to stay ahead of the curve by consistently providing unique and relevant solutions. Importantly, we're not just building products based on assumptions but instead are addressing the real issues that customers face.
We work in a collaborative environment, where one of the team may say ‘Actually, have we thought about doing it this way?’ Through a team player mindset, we can come up with a solution very quickly. As an SME, we don’t have big shareholders to pay either, so we can keep the money within our business to develop products and solutions.
Can you give some examples of problem solving that you’ve achieved for rail?
There have been so many! Problem solving is what we do.
Pantograph monitoring systemWe were working with one customer on a pantograph vibration monitoring system on quite a new train. Normally you would have to drill holes in the top of the train to bring the cables in for this, but obviously getting approval to drill holes in a shiny new train is not going to be easy.
We thought about lots of different approaches to powering the monitoring system. We could put a battery in there, but the downside with a battery is that it's going to run down. We could put solar panels on the roof of the train, maybe. Solar panels are a nice idea, but the top of the train is a really dirty environment, so there would need to be frequent cleaning. Neither batteries nor solar panels seemed like a good idea.
We managed to come up with a solution that uses surplus energy from the train system. There is no need for structural changes or drilling holes, and the device is virtually maintenance-free. We can also easily send the pantograph monitoring data by radio to a receiver in the train.
Light diffuser solution for Class 170sOn the Class 170s, the light diffusers are made up from extruded parts. There were probably four different parts in each diffuser, and these were getting damaged. To do that extrusion again, we would need to find the original tooling, which is long gone now. So we thought, ‘How can this be made in a different way?’ And we came up with a way of fabricating it rather than extruding it. We used an alternative manufacturing technique to create a duplicate component for the diffusers, essentially extending their lifespan.
And that’s partly due to the way a smaller organisation is structured. We foster an entrepreneurial culture and creativity. In turn, that allows us to develop new products and solutions. Often, I’ll say, ‘Yes, we can sort that for you’, even if I don’t know then what the exact solution is. But knowing our skill sets, and the collaborative partnerships we have with other SMEs, I know we’ll be able to work out a solution.
What do you mean by ‘SMEs can be a point within the rail ecosystem where ideas and technologies are brought in from other industries’?
Our advantage is that we can respond flexibly to a project and make decisions extremely quickly. We stay updated on market trends and know about emerging technologies. For example, I keep an eye on what’s happening in other industries, universities, and emerging sectors. I quite regularly have meetings with different universities to find out what they’re doing.
I was recently at a meeting at the Department for Transport about innovation and research and development in rail. I was the only SME there, and we all agreed that the rail industry needs to get better at tapping into the innovation and fresh ideas SMEs can bring. Someone from DfT recognised that they need to be listening to SMEs. That’s vital.
Customer-centric relationships Our customers are also our partners. We have the time to build those relationships, fully understand what they want, and meet those needs and preferences. Customer satisfaction is one of the core pillars of our business strategy.
As an SME, we can establish close and more direct communication channels with our customers. Even though I’m the MD of Belvoir Rail, my phone still rings with calls from fleet engineers who have a problem that needs fixing. I want to do what I can to make their job easier, and I think they really appreciate that, which is why they come back to us. We’ve been in business for 15 years now, and I’m still helping the same people I helped when I started.
As an SME, we can dedicate time to really get to know our customers and the problems they have, which gives us a strong competitive advantage over larger companies. I’m adamant that we’re not going to lose that as we grow.
Strong safety cultureBuilding and maintaining a strong safety culture within an SME can be challenging, especially when resources are limited, such as dedicated safety teams. We currently don’t have a designated head of safety, so for us it comes down to living and breathing safety and getting all our people involved in everything we do for safety, including implementing processes and procedures. If somebody makes a mistake, we do everything we can to learn from it, so it doesn’t happen again in the future.
Quality assuranceI started the business as an individual, and within the first six months I had implemented ISO 9001. That was hard work, but I felt it was crucial. We were a member of another assurance scheme for a while, but now we’re a member of RISQS, the Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme. We recently achieved ISO 14001 certification, even though that took a lot of commitment, time, and expense as an SME. We felt it was important to do. We don’t have the vast budgets of the bigger companies, but we’re trying to have the same standards in our SME environment. So, we made that commitment, got everybody involved, and achieved it.
Efficiency and costThe whole industry is under pressure to save money and be more efficient. We’re trying to develop products that aren’t expensive but that can help run the railway more affordably. There isn’t going to be a return on investment on products that cost millions, but things like our pantograph monitoring system can make a huge difference.
ReliabilitySMEs like us face competition from larger corporations that have greater financial resources, established market presence, and stronger brand recognition. Our passion, drive, and dedication to making a difference has been key to our competitiveness, success, and growth.
If an SME is successful, often the large corporates try to buy it, and then its distinctiveness and the capabilities that allowed it to innovate get lost in the bigger structure. My purpose with Belvoir Rail is not to have an ‘exit strategy’ but to build a business that people can rely on.
Safety culture represents shared beliefs, values, and assumptions within an organisation in relation to safety and has a big impact on performance. Access our safety culture toolkit for more information.
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