Wabtec Global Services


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Wabtec Global Services Capitalizes on Railroads' Quest for Efficiency
Erin Peterson, Wabtrax

Railroads must transform themselves into leaner, meaner competitive machines. Challenged by a slumping economy, competition from trucking companies and customer demands for lower prices, the industry is ripe for new solutions that will increase productivity reduce operating costs or other wise improve its ability to serve customers. In anticipation of this rising need, Wabtec Global Services is expanding its capabilities beyond the traditional service center.

"This is a critical time for Wabtec Global Services and the rail industry," says Jim Hoffner, vice president and general manager, Wabtec Global Services. "The rail industry stands at the cusp of improving its market share, business practices and reputation, and Wabtec can help achieve this potential."

To seize this opportunity, Wabtec Global Services is offering additional product support at its service centers, simplifying the parts ordering process, expanding customer training and adding new technology-based services.

Technology-Advance Services
Besides improving traditional avenues of customer service, Wabtec Global Services now offers advance business solutions. One of the division's ventures into this field involves managing parts inventory for railroads through dedicated websites that enable customers to electronically record parts usage daily at various locations. Pre-determined minimum and maximum inventory levels instruct the system to automatically generate purchase orders and shipments. The customer receives only what is needed when it is needed, while enjoying lower costs, increased operating efficiency and reduced inventories.

Other additions to Wabtec Global Services' advanced technology-based solutions are its Wireless Rail Car Maintenance and Billing (CRB) and Back Office applications, which dramatically improve the complex process of recording and invoicing for repairs a railroad completes on freight cars owned by other railroads and leasing companies. With CRB, maintenance personnel use a wireless, hand-held device to record inspection and repair work conducted on freight cars off-site field locations, and submit the information to a central network server. Back Office automates many of the labor-intensive, administrative tasks of car repair billing, such as ensuring that a repair is billable, identifying the car owner to be billed, discerning AAR or special-agreement pricing, and generating paper and electronic invoices.

BC Rail, Canada's third-largest railroad, signed a contract earlier this year for an integrated system that combines CRB and Back Office. The solution is having a positive impact on the railroad's car repair billing process already.

"Since implementing the system in May 2003, we've been able to better manager our inventory, and mechanical operations have been enhanced through a seamless integrations with our accounting system," says Tom Aydon, supervisor mechanical systems for BC Rail. "We expect that billing revenue will increase this year by approximately 10% and billing errors will be virtually eliminated."

This type of positive customer feed-back reinforces Wabtec Global Services' quest to offer the railroads services that go beyond traditional repairs and positively impact the tough business of running a railroad.

Innovation: About Wabtec
BCRail Inside Track

Brain Mohat, Communications Tec, NV Radio Shop was impressed when he heard about a new wireless data collection system called the "Wabtec Car Repair Billing Implementation Project." It's a complex name for a project that Mohat says will simplify revenue collection on the maintenance side, in particular billing of outside railcar repairs.

Systems Supervisor Owen Book and Manager Freight Equipment Dave Bandy, are heading up the Wabtec project, which Bandy describes as a "sophisticated computer system used to collect repair activity in our shops on foreign cars, prepare and send invoices to the car owners for payment, as well as handle payables for work done to our cars by other roads."

Since the 1970's, BC Rail has relied on an antiquated system purchased from to track and bill repair work done to foreign and leased cars in accordance with the Association of American Railroads (AAR) interchange rules. "The old system was cumbersome, couldn't track invoice histories, and gave too many opportunities for data to get lost," Bandy explains.

The Wabtec system is Internet-based and uses tough screens on handheld computers and radio frequency (RF) technology to talk to the network. The user-friendly system will be used to collect repair data on all cars, including BC Rail's own cars. The data will be collected by the employees actually doing the work, thereby reducing the opportunity for error and omissions. Wabtec will process the data and create billing invoices in compliance with AAR billing regulations. Wabtec will also receive invoices from other roads for work they've done on BC Rail cars and check them for accuracy and compliance before sending them along for payment.

The new system was tested on a limited basis in March in Prince George. Data was collected on the handhelds and transferred to check for errors going in and out. The benefits for the future will be more accurate collection of repair information, better invoice accuracy and more complete maintenance history records. On top of that, says Bandy, "Cars won't have to be hauled back to the interchanges for repair. We can maintain cars along the line and send the bill from there."

BC Rail buys wireless car repair billing system
September 30, 2003

Wabtec announced Sept. 30 that its Wabtec Global Services division had won a contract from BC Rail for a wireless system that collects car inspection and repair data from field locations. The system has already been installed and is working well, according to Thomas Aydon, the railroad’s supervisor, mechanical systems. "We expect that billing revenues will increase by approximately 10% and billing errors will be virtually eliminated," said Aydon.

In an earlier announcement, Wabtec said its wireless hand-held system "has been licensed by several Class I railroads and other customers." The system developed for BC Rail, said Wabtec, incorporates Wireless Railcar Maintenance and Billing and the new Back Office application, first used by BC Rail. The Back Office "responds to the AAR’s desire for electronic standards and programs. The system automates many of the labor-intensive, administrative tasks of car-billing, such as insuring that a repair is billable, identifying the owner to be billed, discerning AAR or special-agreement pricing, and generating paper and electronic invoices. The system also automatically audits repairs and generates invoices for work performed on BC Rail’s freight cars by other railroads."