What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter into the logistics and/or rail industry? What advice should they ignore? Our industry is in the beginning stages of a tremendous technological transformation. I have 2 recommendations for preparing yourself to thrive in the logistics industry of the future. Have some […]
With 98.8% of route miles now PTC complete, have you found Positive Train Control to be a positive or negative mandate for the railroads? PTC was mandated for safety reasons, so from that perspective, it has met its mandate. A side benefit of PTC is that the railways now have a greater visibility to and […]
How is your company responding to the increase in COVID-19 cases? Our company, and myself personally, take COVID-19 very seriously. We are taking measures to support our employees in all of our global locations to work from home while supporting our customers remotely for an extended period of time. And we have actually found some […]
Do you personally know anyone who has COVID-19? If so, how severe are the symptoms and have they recovered? Unfortunately, I do. Our Rochester, MI, team member Julianna and her fiancé Avery had a very serious experience with COVID. Avery is an EMT, so they expected him to eventually catch the virus during his front-line […]
What 3 technology resources do you spend the most time using? Our own software! We do not “sell” our software, we offer it as a service. So it’s critical that we proactively manage our system and data quality. If I am not in the system on a daily basis just like my customers are, I […]
What technology initiatives would provide the greatest impact for your business? Developing rail industry standards. There’s a ton of investment right now — new hardware (drones, GPS data from ELDs on trucks, remote monitoring units on railcars/containers), and new mediums (APIs replacing EDI, for example). And with new data science methods, including AI and Machine […]
How important is data when making operational and commercial decisions for your company? We practice continuous improvement, which means we rely heavily on data to quantify and resolve problems, both operational and commercial. We research a problem using both qualitative data (speaking with frontline team members about their experience with that problem and any ideas […]
What piece of advice have you received in your career that has had the most impact? Someone once told me to spend more time listening than talking, because people will tell you things you could never imagine to ask them about. I’m continuously trying new approaches for open-ended conversations, to better understand the “why” behind […]
Are there any initiatives or projects that you are considering executing now, that you did not execute pre-COVID-19? This pause in out-of-office activities has been an opportunity for us to re-examine our product and how we can improve it for our customers. We are implementing improvements to our ETA algorithms, enhanced business analytics, new technologies […]