(The following press release was circulated by Canadian Pacific Railway.)
CALGARY, — Canadian Pacific Railway, in partnership with MultiModal Applied Systems, Inc., hasbeen named a finalist in the prestigious 2003 Franz Edelman Award for Management Science Achievement for its groundbreakingwork in scheduled railroading.
CPR was nominated for its integrated operating plan, a multi-phase scheduled operations initiative that has taken more than $300million out of the company’s cost base.
CPR is one of six finalists – and the only Canadian company – in the internationally recognized award run by the Institute forOperations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).
“Our integrated operating plan has transformed the way we run our trains and serve our customers,” said Rob Ritchie, CPR’sPresident and Chief Executive Officer. “It allows us to move more freight on time with fewer resources than at any other time in ourrecent history. It has unleashed productivity and service improvements that are helping to drive our growth.”
Through a rigorous service design process and leading-edge software tools, the integrated operating plan maps out CPR’s complexinterconnections of equipment, facilities, track and crews to meet more than 20,000 individual customer service commitments eachyear.
The operating plan, which was launched in 1999, capitalizes on CPR’s recent $2.8-billion investment in new locomotives, technologyand facilities. It has reduced delays and yard congestion through directional blocking of cars and enables CPR’s 427 newAC-powered locomotives to haul longer, heavier trains. The plan also takes advantage of capacity improvements at sidings, yardsand terminals across CPR’s 14,000-mile network.
The benefits are particularly noticeable in CPR’s fast-growing intermodal sector where a new premium train service deliverssignificantly improved on-time performance.
Productivity improvements since 1998 include:
– a 17 per cent reduction in fuel consumption
– a 35 per cent increase in locomotive productivity
– a 40 per cent improvement in car transit times
The integrated operating plan is supported by the MultiRail service design software tool developed by MultiModal, a joint nominee forthe Franz Edelman award.
The CPR/MultiModal team will join the five other finalists at the INFORMS national conference in Phoenix, Arizona on May 5, wherethe winner will be announced. The other finalists are Hewlett-Packard, UPS, Israel’s Bank Hapoalim, Emery Forwarding, and TexasChildren’s Hospital.
Canadian Pacific Railway is Canada’s first transcontinental railway and is the only transcontinental carrier with direct service to theU.S. Eastern Seaboard. CPR’s 14,000-mile network serves the principal centers of Canada, from Montreal to Vancouver, and theU.S. Northeast and Midwest regions. Its track feeds directly into the Chicago hub from the East and West coasts. Alliances withother carriers extend CPR’s market reach beyond its own network and into the major business centres of Mexico.
With a head office in Princeton, New Jersey, MultiModal Applied Systems is a global supplier of freight and passenger rail planningsoftware. MultiModal’s MultiRail(R) service planning systems, and related consulting services, are used to cut operating cost bymany of the world’s largest rail companies in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, Australia, Spain and Germany.