Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen AG

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„The implementation of Trapeze Cargo Manager boosts OHE to a higher performance level and is absolutely essential in the current market environment.“


 

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Michail Stahlhut, CEO, Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen AG

 

SNAPSHOT

Company: Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen AG
Directly managed rail network: 300 km
Rolling stock: A good 50 locomotives and more than 1,000 goods wagons
Employees: 253
Principal tasks: Rail cargo transport
Trapeze products: Trapeze Operation Management System, for staff and duty management), Trapeze Cargo Manager (for resource planning,scheduling, extracting operational data, cost control and management reporting)

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Customer dialogue plays a significant role in the product development activities of the Trapeze Group. Time and time again, customers‘ ideas have provided an important stimulus for product enhancements. Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen (OHE) played a key role in expanding the cargo functionality. The Celle-based company‘s suggestions have had a decisive influence on the functionality of the software solution. The result is user-friendly software that more than meets users‘ needs.

 

THE CHALLENGE

Planning, scheduling and costing competitive transport and logistics services has traditionally been done with Excel, Access, telephones, fax machines and e-mail. In 2006 OHE took the view that these tools were no longer appropriate. The company therefore resolved to introduce a new, integrated software system. Additionally, they wanted the new tool to support data exchange between the sales, production and accounting departments and the workshops. The wish list also included detailed reporting options for management information and statistics.

OHE contacted the suppliers known to them and started comparing what they had to offer. The well-conceived design of Trapeze’s modularly structured software attracted their attention. In the end, the functional scope and good price/performance ratio of the Trapeze system for shift planning and staff allocation (Trapeze Operation Management System) tipped the scales for the decision-makers.

 

THE PROJECT

The planning and management of trains and personnel as well as the processing of base data for payroll accounting were implemented quickly with the Trapeze Operation Management System. However, OHE’s managers also wanted additional functionality to enable them to meet the special needs of cargo transport. They were particularly interested in end-to-end order processing, including costing, quotation and invoicing. They discussed their ideas with the Trapeze product development team, which was highly receptive. In this way, requirements arising from practical experience were incorporated into the software.

This collaboration gave the OHE project management team a decisive advantage, as the team could directly influence the design of the user interfaces and the functionality with its suggestions. It received a system that was virtually tailored to its needs for cargo transport. Trapeze in turn benefited from direct contact with OHE’s experts and was able to develop user-friendly software, which in a manner of speaking had already proven itself in practice and could be extended to meet the market’s individual requirements with no additional programming effort.

 

THE NUTS AND BOLTS

OHE’s data is located on an Oracle server. Access to the application is handled by a high-performance Citrix server farm. The Trapeze Operation Management System is used for resource planning (train, engine driver and staff scheduling, timetable scheduling and preparation). Briefly, this means that staff master data needs to be imported automatically from the IFS staff data system. A corresponding payroll data export function is also planned. The Trapeze module also looks after other needs typically found in cargo transport operations. For OHE’s staff, this translates into:

• faster scheduling and consistent monitor ing of current transport activities;
• reliable recording and easy analysis of relevant operational data;
• reliable cost control, revenue determina- tion and final costing;
• efficient management of workshop activi- ties;
• higher productivity for handling routine tasks.

The flexibility of the system is especially important to OHE. OHE’s administrator can customize the user interfaces and the functionality available to users. For example, the overview of the workshop activities operates according to the “traffic light” principle. This enables those in charge to recognise immediately if everything is OK (green) or if action is needed.

 

IN PRACTICE

The Trapeze software has been in use in the production, sales and accounting departments and two workshops since 2009. There is also a dedicated information system for senior management. A total of 14 employees use the system on a regular basis, of which four use the system daily. As the module is being updated continuously, user instruction by OHE’s system specialists has already become almost routine. Of course, this puts an additional burden on the employees, since they constantly need to learn and remember something new. However, the initial scepticism has given way to broad acceptance, and now none of them want to do without the newly acquired functionality.

OHE’s system administrators know how important a complete, consistent and reliable database is for analysis. That is why they appreciate the easy, reliable data recording functionality, which also provides extensive monitoring features. In the past, diverse and sometimes redundant recording tools (Excel tables, etc.) repeatedly led to different results. These tools have now been largely replaced by the Trapeze cargo transport module. As all communication tools have also been effectively integrated, time-consuming arrangements by telephone, fax and e-mail are a thing of the past. So, for instance, the performance management form for the workshops is now an integral part of the system and no longer needs to be sent separately by fax or e-mail. Regular statistics can also be generated and evaluated more easily with the new Trapeze module.

The employees in the operations management and costing areas are not the only ones working faster and more productively. Management is also supported in its decisions by fully up-to-date reports on key data. CEO Michail Stahlhut shares this view: “In addition to more effective handling of day-to-day operations, we are now able to generate meaningful reports and analyses to support management. The system gives us the intelligence to respond flexibly to market issues. Now and in the future, this enables us to find the right answers to customer questions in the fast-moving cargo transport market.”

 

SUMMARY

OHE is very satisfied with its new system. The key to the success of the project was and still is the close collaboration between OHE staff and the Trapeze development team. Although some of OHE’s expectations have not yet been fulfilled, the ongoing exchange of ideas results in continual fine tuning of the system with a constant stream of improvements.

Follow-on projects are already in the planning stage. Wagon detection and damaged wagon management are already being implemented, as is invoice processing for incoming invoices. Furthermore, the Trapeze system is currently being rolled out to payroll accounting. Plans for the near future include a text messaging service for data transmission, which is intended to eliminate the need for telephone conversations between engine drivers and operations managers. In the longer term, optimised deployment in the sales department and extended statistics functions are at the top of the priority list.