95 hours of engineering time per RFQ reclaimed.

ROBEL Bahnbaumaschinen GmbH is an international specialist in railway construction and maintenance technology. Based in Freilassing, Bavaria, the company develops machines, systems and services for safe, efficient and sustainable railway infrastructure worldwide.

Founded in 1901, ROBEL combines leading engineering expertise with practical, customer-focused solutions. Its portfolio includes hand-guided machines, tools, on-track vehicles, mobile maintenance systems and specialized railway applications used by contractors in more than 70 countries.

ROBEL’s offering ranges from robust equipment for daily track work to customized vehicles and system solutions for complex maintenance tasks. Its machinery and tools cover all essential track maintenance operations – from drilling, cutting and grinding to wrenching, clipping and tamping as well as transport operations,  while battery-powered and low-emission technologies support safer, more ergonomic and environmentally responsible work on track.

Within systems and vehicles, ROBEL provides rail-bound machines, work vehicles, mobile maintenance systems, rail handling solutions, track vehicles and trailers for mainline, urban, tunnel and high-speed applications. These solutions are designed to increase productivity, occupational safety, environmental performance and lifecycle efficiency.

As part of the ROBEL Group, the company benefits from specialized business units and partners, combining mechanical engineering, automation, measurement technology, rail treatment and lifecycle services into integrated railway infrastructure solutions.

‍

When a railway operator issues a tender for track maintenance equipment, the documentation can run to hundreds of pages, covering technical requirements, safety certifications, vibration limits, environmental criteria, and compatibility with existing infrastructure.

Determining what ROBEL can offer, what requires customization, and how to align input from multiple internal stakeholders before responding to the customer-facing document traditionally took weeks or even months and relied heavily on Excel.

The proposal process involved more than 18 specialist departments, who often had to answer similar questions repeatedly because there was no central system of record. Foreign-language tenders had to be translated manually before technical work could begin, and each ROBEL employee spent valuable time understanding the full scope of each new tender. Several internal workflows were also handled manually, including cross-referencing standards, preparing sub-supplier RFQs, generating technical documentation, and more.

‍

The Solution

With Atira, ROBEL saves 95 hours of sales and engineering time per RFQ, proactively identifies hidden red flags, and improves the quality of requirement reviews.

Deviation List / Red Flags

Atira annotates the full tender clause by clause, flagging deviations, risks, and open questions on day 1. What used to be a cold start on hundreds of pages now begins with an agent having already done the initial structuring, commenting including an AI-Reasoning and stakeholder allocation.

Parallel department review

18 specialist departments review and refine the annotated tender version at the same time, each seeing only what's relevant to them + the insights and drafts generated by an Atira agent. All of them have access to the Atira Assistant, bringing together all details of the tender with internal specifications and historic responses.

Norm compliance mapping

Railway tenders reference dozens of norms without including them. Atira matches each referenced norm against the actual requirements and checking country-specific regulations automatically. A structured compliance assessment now takes hours instead of weeks of manual lookups.

Sub-Supplier RFQs

ROBEL frequently has to contact sub-suppliers to comment or offer on sub-aspects of the Tender. A dedicated Atira Agent now identifies the relevant technical and commercial content, structures the requirements and generates a first draft of a sub-supplier RFQ.

Automated first drafts of proposal documents

With Atira, required proposal documents can be identified with a single click, while specially configured agents automatically generate first drafts. ROBEL uses preconfigured agents to create initial technical summaries and draft test plans efficiently.

ROBEL Process Orchestration

With Atira, ROBEL has set up an end-to-end inbound system, augmenting their market leading know-how with AI efficiency across 20+ internally developed Atira Agents embedded in their Tender Response process.