(Reuters circulated the following article by Nick Carey on November 7.)
NORTH PLATTE, Nebraska — On the wind-swept prairie, the Bailey Yard rail tracks seem a world away from the frenzied pit stops of Daytona 500 motor racing. But Cameron Scott claims they are more similar than you’d think.
“When a car comes into the pits, everyone has a specific task to do to get that car back out on the track as fast as possible,” said Scott, 44, who heads the Union Pacific Corp. yard in western Nebraska. “When our trains come in here, it’s pretty much the same situation.”
“Our crews must act more like NASCAR pit crews,” he said.
Union Pacific, like other U.S. railroads, has seen a jump in demand over the last few years, driven by rising imports and coal-hungry utilities seeking a low-cost alternative to expensive natural gas.
The combined effect has strained capacity, forcing railroads to put more money into developing infrastructure, adding track to haul more goods.
Union Pacific alone has earmarked $2.8 billion to spend on running and expanding its network this year, with $3.2 billion projected for 2007, according to company officials.
In this Nebraska town of nearly 25,000, the largest U.S. railroad wants to boost efficiency and worker motivation by harnessing the methods and imagery of stock car racing, a sport intensely popular among blue-collar American men.
Union Pacific has hired Pit Instruction & Training LLC to help staff with trains pulling in to be serviced, much like stock cars midway through a high-speed NASCAR race.
“The more trains the crews keep on the rails, the more goods they can haul,” said Breon Klopp, a principal at PIT.
The railroad says the move should save time and boost its capacity without having to invest millions on new track.
Analysts say Union Pacific’s desire to capitalize on the exciting image of NASCAR racing is understandable, but they question whether it will have any lasting impact.
HALFWAY HOUSE
North Platte is the busiest rail yard in the United States and it sits at a key point on Union Pacific’s network, right in the center of the country.
Trains traveling eastbound from the West Coast and across the Rocky Mountains are laden with containers of consumer goods from developing nations such as China. They stop here in need of fuel, an engine check and possibly an entire tune-up before heading to their own finish line further east, where the majority of the U.S. population resides.
As rail traffic was growing along with imports, Union Pacific made plans to invest tens of millions of dollars on more track at Bailey Yard — a traditional response to capacity demands.
But Cameron Scott and his managers responded that they wanted to try boosting capacity using the existing track.
“My first instinct as a yard manager is always to ask for more track,” he said. “Asking the railroad to postpone laying new track means the pressure is on us to deliver results.”
At Bailey Yard, the “dwell time” of trains — the length of time it takes them to complete their “pit stop” — has decreased to 3.6 hours, from more than 3.8 hours in 2004. Scott has added a second five-man pit crew to speed up the process, and the 2007 target is a “dwell” of 2.5 hours.
By knocking a third off dwell time, the yard would increase capacity by a third.
But in order to do without adding track, Union Pacific must “engage employees to really drive improvements,” said Dick McClish, the railroad’s vice president of continuous improvement, a post created in 2004.
McClish has a background in efficiency drives in the manufacturing sector, including almost 20 years at General Electric Co.’s plastics business where he focused on improving productivity.
“What we need is for the people at the grass-roots level of the company to own the process,” McClish said.
McClish and other managers decided that the NASCAR racing connection was the best way to engage employees on an emotional level.
NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, has an estimated 75 million fans out of a total U.S. population of 300 million. The sport’s largely blue-collar supporters love NASCAR for its speed as stock cars tear around asphalt tracks at up to 200 mph.
“We have many NASCAR fans at Bailey Yard,” Scott said.
The instructors from Mooresville, North Carolina-based PIT began training crews at Bailey Yard in October using the same principles that are used at its “Pit Crew U” for NASCAR crews.
These principles have cut NASCAR pit stops from an average of 20 seconds eight years ago to 13 seconds now.
“But it’s not just about doing things fast, it’s about teamwork and coordination,” PIT’s Klop said. “Everyone has a place and a task and that’s where we can show improvement.”
Previous clients have included the maintenance division at chip maker Intel Corp. and baggage handlers at UAL Corp.’s United Airlines.
It makes sense for Union Pacific to look for ways to boost employees’ emotional attachment to their work, said railroad analyst Tony Hatch of New York-based ABH Consulting.
“But we’ll have to wait and see whether this approach will bring any lasting benefits,” he added.