Functional user benefits

SmartRailCargo captures all horizons of planning, rolling stock, and human resources in one integrated solution. Whether the capacity planners want to plan 18 months of path reservations or the dispatchers are looking for absent staff, they are using the same business rules and constraints.

SmartRailCargo provides functional benefits, such as:

• Intuitive UI/UX – optimized visualization and user-friendly click paths
• Industry standards & regulations configured
• Tailored to your specific requirements
• Cloud Managed Service – Always-on dedicated support by Ab Ovo
• Usage-based pricing model
• Swiftly guided deployment + training – Go live in weeks rather than months

Let’s take a look at what integrated resources planning looks like when using the SmartRailCargo solution. Planning in action. To look at the full details of the solution, please check out our solution sheet.

Capacity planners

Capacity planners create a yearly plan and evaluate whether there is enough capacity on the network to fulfill the demand. Next to long-term planning, these planners are also involved in arranging capacity for ad hoc trains. These planners request paths from the Infra manager to book capacity on the network and in this way secure the network capacity to run the trains. During infrastructure works, these planners are involved in arranging alternative paths/solutions to fulfill the demand. When the customer delays/cancels the orders, these planners will check the impact and if needed make requests to the Infra manager to adjust or cancel the paths.

Transport order planners

Transport order planners check the customer orders, find the best route for these orders and assign them on the trains. These planners work both with long-term transport orders as well as ad hoc orders. When train capacity is reached, these planners will work jointly with capacity planners to find ways to increase capacity.

Traction planners

Traction planners assign trains to traction. In long-term planning, these planners create anonymous traction rotations. In the short term and day of operation physical locomotives are assigned. These planners are also managing the fleet by taking rolling stock maintenance into account. When traction capacity is an issue, these planners are involved in the decision of whether to lease/buy additional rolling stock or whether to rent the rolling stock out to other parties.

Shift planners

Shift planners create shift planning by assigning train, traction, and other activities on the shifts in such a way that these obey the labor union rules and regulations. At the same time, they ensure the high productivity of the shifts. Depending on the organization these planners are creating shifts for one or multiple employee groups at a time. These planners can also be divided into long-haul driver shift planners, ground operator shift planners, shunting crew planners, yard planners, etc.

Roster planners

These planners create rosters for an employee group in such a way that it obeys all the labor union rules and regulations. These planners ensure that all the shifts are assigned to employees and that employees’ skills, knowledge are up-to-date and fulfill the requirements of the shifts. On the day of operation, these planners will ensure that any sick leave or other absences are covered by reassigning/rearranging the work. In the long/short term, these planners manage the holiday planning and make decisions on accepting/denying holiday requests.

Wagon stock planners

Wagon stock planners ensure that enough wagon stock is located at the locations where these are needed to ensure that the trains can run. When the stocks are unbalanced, these planners can plan empty wagon repositioning or take other actions to balance the stock. These planners work closely together with capacity planners and transport order planners to make plans that match the needs.

Employees

Employees such as drivers, ground operators, shunting drivers interact with SmartRailCargo via an app. They get information about their shifts and rosters from SmartRailCargo and can communicate actual check-in/out times as well as other actual times via an app back to SmartRailCargo. The employees have holiday/absence status overviews and can request holiday/request or report sick leave from the app. The roster planners will see within SmartRailCargo the information received from the app and can react to it by accepting/denying holiday requests and act quickly if action is needed when actual times are not timely received or not received at all. In case of delays, roster planners can decide on replanning activities to ensure a swift resolution to the delays.

Managers

SmartRailCargo offers a variety of overviews and dashboards to visualize the quality of the plans and realization via KPIs and charts. The flexible setup of the system offers many opportunities to set up the dashboards in the required way.

Customer satisfaction

Ab Ovo is focused on delivering customer value.  Our in depth experience and expertise ensure that our customers are delighted.  And support both during implementation and beyond is provided by our team of experts who know your business.  We continue to keep you informed about solution software roadmaps, releases and the value this brings to you and your company. If you require additional training or adaption of the solution, we are ready with our team of industry experts to assist you.