Logistics - On the move

Are you stuck by or running from the "on time" bug surrounding the Railroad industry? Read on - this article might just be on time for you.

Well, the every first quarter weather operating excuse is about out of the way for winter 2011 and in April it went out with a bang in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest with near record snows, rain, mudslides, and avalanches.  The Northeast was no piece of cake with heavy snow in place for several months. The 400 plus tornadoes this month cause delays waiting out storms, electrical outages and debris littering the mainlines.   So as we dry out and wait to see what the Mississippi is going to offer up and how flooded Fargo and area will be, we can get freight moving "on time" again. 

Have you done a study to see what the value of "on-time" would be for your railroad and customers?  Do you have an on-time budget and a historical here is how we normally do budget?  What is the delta between the two?  If you are moving on-time how much more capacity do you  have with locomotives, cars, crews, terminals, to handle more business from existing customers and attract new ones?  With the price of diesel and growth in everything except housing now is the time for on-time?   What can you do with pricing based on capacity and demand?  How can you be more flexible for spot demand and long term demand?

There are several ways to attack this opportunity-simulation of moving business over your network with your "on-time" plan and comparing your actual results.  Looking at new blocking schemes, and schedules to move traffic over the network. Review operating priorities, setting new processes in place, rewarding on-time and safe performance.  Getting the company word out about "on-time", talking with your customers about what on-time is for them and updating measurement systems.  It takes comprehensive planning, communication, execution, and evaluation to produce a plan out there, go for execution, and make changes for the better. 

The other priority is to talk with your customers and see what is changing for them in the way of demand, production, days and hours of operations, to determine what the "new on-time" is for them and start the planning and scheduling process.  This is never ending and if your organization is good at this, it is part of the culture and money in the bank.  The opportunities are there, the support technology is available, so go for it!

Posted by James Wilson at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I love the smell of diesel fuel in the morning!  Is this a famous movie line?  Is this from someone working at the fuel rack?  It is not from the shipper fuel procurement person who is seeing prices on the rise.  It is not from all of us who are watching the birth of new "democracies" in the Middle East that are causing the rise in prices.  However, it is an opportunity for all of us to save fuel by putting more trailer, container, bulk and boxcar loads on the railroads in North America.  Capacity is available on existing trains and there is capacity to add more trains and services.  This convergence of opportunity for shippers and the railroads is not one to be missed.

While this is going on, it is time for the railroads to consider making it easier to do business with their customers.  How does a railroad do this?  Pull out your Smart Phone and think about the way this instrument can be the simple interface between you and your customer think SmartRailroading (SR).  If I can do banking, pay bills, make reservations, check routes and rates, scan a bar code with my Smart Phone, buy a plane ticket and show the bar code to TSA, then there is no reason you cannot interface with a railroad and move a container (even with hazmat inside) on the North American Railroads.  I don't know about you but I can figure out how to navigate between all of these features on the first try.  It is simple because the seller wants the business and wants to get my cash as fast as they can and it is always before I have the goods or services!

While it does take some investment to develop a Droid, Apple, BlackBerry, and Palm app to cover the SmartRailroading universe making it simple is part of capturing the shipper to easily interface with the railroad and know it is easy to do business with them.  Large scale shippers are dealing with trucks, ships, railroads, and 3PL's to move their goods.  The railroads need to remove the obstacle of having a hard to navigate interface to do business.  A shipper should be able to order equipment, make appointments for a spot/pull, a drey, make a waybill, prepay the shipment, provide weights, hazmat information, and execute the transaction anywhere an antenna is available or dock their device from loading dock to office to transmit the data and receive confirmation.  Likewise track and trace with shipment trip plan should be just as easy.  The ability to look at financial transactions with the railroad should be just as easy as looking at my bank account in the middle of the mall.  SmartRailroading-shipper satisfaction and faster cash flow a winning combination.

Posted by James Wilson at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)