Rail Cargo Planning
WhitepaperProfit Maximization through Demand Oriented Planning
The Challenge
The current market situation of diminishing margins and tightening delivery windows has led to increased complexity in planning and scheduling processes in rail cargo. Large investments are tied up in rolling stock. It’s getting harder and harder to find and hire skilled staff and keep up with legislation and needed certificates. Therefore, the efficient use of resources is a top priority to secure the competitive edge in rail freight transport. The more complex and diversified the business model, the more important the planning tools and efficient processes.
The Market Vision
Rail cargo services remain an essential, environmental friendly transportation service fully integrated in the global logistic supply chain. Ab Ovo’s vision is to establish fully digitized intuitive offers with the customer’s end-to-end transportation needs as the focus. Service providers will provide fully transparent booking applications including suggested best options to customer with real time capacity available.
Ab Ovo firmly believes that the digital transformation is a positive trend for rail cargo operators. The necessary technology is available and affordable for new entrants and niche players on the rail cargo market. This will lead to simple booking systems that will be connected to the planning systems and to infrastructure managers all over the world, so that payments and settlements are done in real time at delivery. Goods will be tracked, at any time, door to door independent of modality.
The Ab Ovo Rail Cargo Planning Solution
The current market situation of diminishing margins and tightening delivery windows has led to increased complexity in planning and scheduling processes in rail cargo. Large investments are tied up in rolling stock. It’s getting harder and harder to find and hire skilled staff and keep up with legislation and needed certificates. Therefore, the efficient use of resources is a top priority to secure the competitive edge in rail freight transport. The more complex and diversified the business model, the more important the planning tools and efficient processes.
Advanced Planning & Scheduling
Rail cargo services remain an essential, environmental friendly transportation service fully integrated in the global logistic supply chain. Ab Ovo’s vision is to establish fully digitized intuitive offers with the customer’s end-to-end transportation needs as the focus. Service providers will provide fully transparent booking applications including suggested best options to customer with real time capacity available.
Ab Ovo firmly believes that the digital transformation is a positive trend for rail cargo operators. The necessary technology is available and affordable for new entrants and niche players on the rail cargo market. This will lead to simple booking systems that will be connected to the planning systems and to infrastructure managers all over the world, so that payments and settlements are done in real time at delivery. Goods will be tracked, at any time, door to door independent of modality.
Business Benefits
Planning optimization: RCP is KPI and activity based planning. A planner can always see the consequences of a decision or disruption which will result in higher utilization of locos and wagons and cost efficient solution in dispositions. A clear
overview of used and available paths optimize the time tables costs. When all the constraints are considered, it leads to better planning and a clear understanding of the interdependencies.
Reduced costs: Having more information in the planning process can be leveraged to improve it. The improvements can be measured by means of parameters (KPIs) and expressed in many ways. While overtime costs and penalties because of delayed shipments are obvious, other types of savings including increased efficiency, SLA, etc. are also possible.
Quality improvement: Stronger insight into the actual process leads to a better and more feasible planning situation with less (last-minute) disruption.
Higher revenue: RCP can clearly show where it’s possible to include more wagons in a train thus increase revenue to marginal cost. Real-time traffic interface enables you to guarantee ETA to your customer and thus offer a premium service. Loading delays caused by the customer become visible in real-time thus enabling you to charge the extra costs to the party causing the delay.
Strategic Partner
Rail cargo services remain an essential, environmental friendly transportation service fully integrated in the global logistic supply chain. Ab Ovo’s vision is to establish fully digitized intuitive offers with the customer’s end-to-end transportation needs as the focus. Service providers will provide fully transparent booking applications including suggested best options to customer with real time capacity available.
Ab Ovo firmly believes that the digital transformation is a positive trend for rail cargo operators. The necessary technology is available and affordable for new entrants and niche players on the rail cargo market. This will lead to simple booking systems that will be connected to the planning systems and to infrastructure managers all over the world, so that payments and settlements are done in real time at delivery. Goods will be tracked, at any time, door to door independent of modality.
Look & Feel of the RCP Solution
RCP is built on the industry leading SCP&O platform Quintiq from Dassault Systèmes. The Quintiq platform is a decision support solution for your planning organization that brings optimization in support of the planner, real-time KPIs and scenario management. Ab Ovo has inserted decades of rail cargo experience in a proprietary business model tailored for the rail cargo industry. Eighty percent are standard processes. and the remaining 20% can be configured for your specific business processes and rules.
Selected Ab Ovo Rail Clients
