10% decrease in service interruption hours
Total hours trains held reduced 9.7%


Strategic Intent

Increase ROI by effectively absorbing increased customer volume without additional resources or capital investments


Situation

  • $15 billion North American Class I railroad
  • Operates 32,000 route miles in the U.S. and Canada
  • Demand for freight services growing as customers switch from trucking to lower-cost rail
  • Client must quickly increase internal capacities by optimizing asset and resource utilization
  • Management has sense of urgency around this issue

Issues and Barriers

  • Poor planning, scheduling and inconsistent reporting result in unnecessary train delays and lost capacity
  • Internal resources unable to develop new planning tools
  • Dispatch management spends too much time on process flow, resulting in excessive train crew on-duty time
  • Current reporting process contains excessive time-consuming paper reports and conflicting data from differing sources

Key Implementations

  • Increase visibility of service interruptions and delays
  • Streamline reporting processes to ensure more consistent and accurate data
  • Process for data archiving and analysis
  • Planning and scheduling process that’s easily converted into web-based, automated system
  • Follow up all new processes with one-on-one coaching to ensure full understanding and compliance

Results

Total Hours Trains Held Reduced 9.7%

T_W-CS3

  • Train delays reduced over 5%
  • Coal volume increases 4%
  • Service interruption hours decrease 10%
  • Total hours held reduced 9.7%
  • Excessive crew overtime reduced by 7%

Client Perspective

“The coal planning process has enabled the Coal Desk to optimize loading at the mine, resulting in improved daily train loading.”
— Regional Vice President, Operations

“My organization can now utilize their time planning and following up on deliveries and not creating many redundant reports and communications.”
— Director, Grain Operations


Achieve your strategic imperative & required financial objectives.
See what a Brooks International initiative can do for you.