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The Role of Rail in the Supply Chain

The Role of Rail in the Supply Chain

Released Tuesday, 15th August 2023
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The Role of Rail in the Supply Chain

The Role of Rail in the Supply Chain

The Role of Rail in the Supply Chain

The Role of Rail in the Supply Chain

Tuesday, 15th August 2023
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:12

From the nation's leading supply chain university program.

0:15

We welcome you to the Penn State Supply Chain podcast brought to you by the Center for Supply Chain Research.

0:22

Here are your hosts, Steve Tracy and Irv Grossman.

0:29

Well, uh ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode number 23 of the Penn State Supply Chain podcast.

0:35

We are uh greeted today by an excellent guest,

0:38

Mr Jim Pang, who's the vice president of New Services Development Innovations at Trinity Rail.

0:44

Uh Let me give you a quick introduction to uh Jim.

0:47

And then I'd like to hear from him a little bit about Trinity,

0:50

his background and what's going on in the rail industry.

0:53

So Jim's worked in both rail operations,

0:56

rail car manufacturing and he's led strategic transformations from ideation through innovation,

1:01

road mapping to scaling for proving disruptive solutions,

1:05

resulting in uh enhanced profitability and increased customer value.

1:10

Uh transformation initiatives have ranged from trends site a next generation shipment visibility exception and assistance platform.

1:18

The last mile industry initiative also known as aim the mobile rail pass app and machine vision inventory management all the way to touchless automated gate systems.

1:27

Jim has a passion for extraordinary customer experiences and obviously one for innovation,

1:32

Jim, welcome today. Hi, Steve.

1:35

Can you uh share a little bit with us about Trinity Rail?

1:38

Uh Maybe uh folks don't know that,

1:40

that name even though we know it's, it's an industry leader and a little bit about your personal background,

1:46

both in the industry and professionally and how you ended up where you are today.

1:49

Sure thing, Steve. So Trinity Rail is uh well regarded in the industry as one of the largest manufacturers of rail cars.

1:59

And then from a leasing perspective,

2:02

the leader in the industry on on rail cars,

2:05

the largest uh in the rail industry.

2:08

And then we also have a very large maintenance footprint as well to support the large ownership of rail cars that we have servicing the rail industry.

2:17

So that's that's the core of of Trinity rail,

2:21

the same breath that leads to my contribution to this platform of offerings to all our rail customers.

2:27

And I believe I have the best job leading our uh service development and innovation efforts work with our customers to develop technology solutions to enhance and digitize the rail supply chain.

2:41

So I've been in the supply chain industry now for about 25 years and have been fortunate to have five,

2:49

I think of it as five tranches of experience first is uh with the building of foundation and broadening the base of understanding and rail.

2:58

I've had some uh field engineering,

3:00

uh mechanical and transportation responsibilities.

3:03

And then my second tranche was uh leading uh Lean Kais activities and six sigma uh analyses to drive value engineering as my second tranche and then pivoting then to my third tranche in sales and marketing and then uh to capital planning and execution.

3:22

And lastly, I've been really enjoying the the network operations and integrating emerging technology with critical operations and customer interfaces.

3:32

So uh just been blessed with uh these different experiences working with customers and improving their supply chain.

3:40

Well, that's a pretty robust background. So our audience knows that they're hearing from a true expert today.

3:44

We're pleasure to have you here with us. Thank you,

3:47

Steve. Yeah, it's a real, very interesting,

3:49

very dynamic and complex ecosystem and I just feel blessed to have the opportunity to,

3:54

to dabble into the uh the different verticals within rail.

3:58

Well, that's a good segue to our first question.

4:00

So you know, a lot of supply chain professionals out there with different parts of the supply chain that they operate in.

4:06

And for a lot of people, rail might be a little bit of a black box that they don't understand.

4:11

So can you talk about the role that rail plays in the overall supply chain and where you see it going forward in terms of its importance in in the overall supply chain?

4:22

So like you said, rail is,

4:24

feels like it's something in the backdrop of things.

4:27

Uh Maybe you notice when you're coming across a road crossing.

4:30

However, it is the backbone of our supply chain here in,

4:34

in North America, somewhere around 35 million rail car loads,

4:39

intermodal units get originated here in North America on rail.

4:44

And so it is a critical link in the the supply chain.

4:47

40% of all the long distance ton miles right on rail.

4:52

And that's a little bit over 2.5 trillion ton miles a year.

4:57

So these are just some of the uh the underpinnings of how volume moves coast to coast or from north to south here in North America.

5:06

Some of the things that I think that may not have been well advertised is how efficient rail is in,

5:13

in the whole transportation world,

5:16

we can move a ton of freight 400 miles on one gallon of fuel.

5:20

And basically it take the place of 3 to 4 trucks that's on the road for every car that moves on rail.

5:26

So just a lot of efficiency, the safest mode of land transportation,

5:31

the efficiency involved and the environmental stewardship that we have.

5:35

So I think from that perspective,

5:37

rail transportation definitely plays a critical role within the supply chain.

5:43

I also think that the movements of goods doesn't just go on one mode typically.

5:50

And so there's a lot of cross modal that happens.

5:52

And so rail is a critical link in connecting uh the marine vessel movements that,

5:59

that uh travel on ocean and then the critical link into the barge network here as well as the trucking network.

6:06

And so rail and its constituent uh adjacent modes,

6:10

I think are all uh pretty critical in the uh the supply chain here in North America.

6:14

In terms of the opportunities that you had mentioned,

6:18

there's a lot of opportunities in which the rail could play into the uh the supply chain.

6:23

One of which we had mentioned, I had mentioned a little bit earlier is the uh the whole ESG aspects of things.

6:30

We think rail has been a, a good steward of,

6:33

of ESG. Well, before ESG was sexy.

6:35

So, you know, we we thought of how do we uh move things,

6:39

environmentally friendly, efficient steel on steel is by physics alone is the most efficient way of,

6:44

of transporting. So there are there are these uh locations or terminals there on,

6:49

on, on the rail network called uh trans loads.

6:53

So these trans trans loads terminals is a way for shipping and receiving locations that don't have rail all the way into their warehouse or all the way into their terminal operations.

7:06

They can go to a trans load location and uh have shipments either moved from uh truck to rail or rail to truck.

7:14

And this is a, a very,

7:16

a very good way to have rail be part of the solution and enjoy all the economies and all the yes G benefits.

7:24

I remember um personally, the first time I heard the term in intermodal.

7:29

In my background, I used to be an army officer in the both active duty and army reserve.

7:34

And I was with an army reserve unit located in Delaware adjacent to a Dover Air Force Base.

7:40

And my boss who was a lieutenant colonel at the time was both a logistics officer and in the rail transportation business.

7:47

And I remember he gave me my first lesson on what intermodal meant because he was actually out there developing the intermodal business.

7:53

I don't remember for which rail line, but that goes back.

7:56

And at the time, I found it fascinating. Now,

7:59

now having been a supply chain professional for all these years,

8:01

it's kind of, it's always fascinating for me to see how rail fits into the overall supply chain when you think or when you're talking to customers or potential customers or if you're a supply chain professional that may not be very familiar with rail as an option for them.

8:18

What are some of the factors that, that that business leader should consider when looking into rail?

8:23

So for someone who is a little bit uh foreign to rail,

8:27

I would say rail, unlike other modes,

8:31

especially maybe in its uh adjacent mode and,

8:35

and, and trucking where you can pick up the phone and,

8:38

and move a unit from A to B in the rail world.

8:42

There's more uh to consider there's a rail carrier that moves the goods from where they originate to perhaps a handoff point.

8:52

The, uh, the rail network here in North America is,

8:54

is all privately owned. And so often when you're moving trans continentally,

8:58

you're gonna touch a minimum of two,

9:01

if not more, uh, railroads involved.

9:03

So there's, there's definitely a little bit more,

9:05

uh, logistical planning and consideration from that perspective.

9:08

There's also the consideration of the goods that's being moved whether or not,

9:14

um, it's going to move in a rail car, an asset in which the railroads provide or uh there are some that they,

9:21

they count on the shippers to provide themselves.

9:23

And that is where the likes of Trinity Rail comes in where we could either uh sell an asset to the customer or we can lease an asset to the customer.

9:33

Now, a rail car is a, a very long term asset and it's got an average about 50 years of life and so definitely a long term commitment.

9:41

Uh but for those who want a shorter term commitment,

9:43

we have a leasing option for customers to consider.

9:46

And then there's the logistics aspects as well as I mentioned earlier.

9:50

There's a lot of handoffs in in rail from one rail to the other,

9:54

from these interchange points. And so,

9:56

logistically speaking, uh Trinity Rail had acquired a logistics company just a couple of months ago.

10:02

And so RSI Logistics is now um with the capability that we have as well and helping customers get the movement of cars from a to b and also,

10:13

uh look at reducing delays and helping them make sure that we're proactively monitoring shipments and getting them from where they ship to where they need it,

10:23

uh without exceptions. And so these are just some of the things that are factors to,

10:27

to consider. Now in the rail space too,

10:30

we acknowledge that uh from our customers.

10:33

It's, um, it's not real time uh from a information perspective,

10:37

unlike maybe you ordering a Domino's pizza or something,

10:40

you can, you get to see where it's at, right?

10:43

Maybe the place is ordered. It's, it's in the oven,

10:45

it's now out for delivery, all that's being able to monitor in real time and,

10:50

and rail. That's, that's not the case.

10:52

There is some information and the system that we're using stems from 30 years ago in the industry in which it's uh it's an RF ID technology.

11:02

And so depending on the line you're running in,

11:05

depending on the, the geography. It's uh usually about every 50 to 100 miles.

11:11

You may get a uh notification of where it's at and that could represent hours.

11:16

Sometimes it could represent days. So the real time aspect of it uh is something that we and Trinity and and others as well are looking to provide a more solutions around and we can get in deeper around trends site.

11:30

And that's why we introduced the visibility platform by adding GPS,

11:34

adding sensors to give customers a real time piece of it also information is not easy to,

11:40

to understand. And uh so it's a complex ecosystem.

11:45

So from, from that perspective, that's that is too where our logistics solution and where Trinity rail is is helping customers be the interpreter,

11:53

be the integrator of information. And so uh we can give them a uh a simple system to use um in a very transparent system.

12:02

And which leads me right into visibility.

12:04

Uh piece of it is not only is the real time aspect a a challenge but also the uh transparency and visibility of information period is something that is uh that,

12:17

that, that requires often a logistics expert and a uh interpreter or an integrator of information and to help bring all that into full view and into a single painted glass for the customer.

12:29

So it sounds like a couple of things that you and you anticipated some of the questions I was gonna ask.

12:33

So I won't, I won't re retrace those rail miles but one was,

12:37

you know, are there companies out there? And it sounds like you just acquired one with RSI that help non rail experts get to use rail by uh leveraging their expertise.

12:47

So that sounds like a really good third party logistics opportunity that may be for non rail professionals to take advantage of that mode.

12:54

And the other question that you, you also kind of answered which when you said about visibility,

12:59

you said it's not there but it's coming. So um you have any idea and again,

13:04

it obviously won't hold you to it, but a guessimate as to when rail transportation will have,

13:09

let's say, not real time, but closer to real time visibility across the network.

13:13

Yeah, I think uh like I mentioned a little earlier,

13:15

the RF ID technology that's in place now for uh for over 30 years has,

13:21

has really served the rail industry well during this period of time.

13:25

And it gave some visibility before the proliferation of of GPS capabilities.

13:31

And some might say, well, this GPS has been around for a while which is true at the same breath,

13:37

railroad conditions are very,

13:40

it's very much an outdoor sport. And so to have a hardened solution that is also economical and dependable has taken a little bit of time right now where I would say is we're definitely in a good spot.

13:52

The technology is mature that the price point is now at an economical point.

13:57

And I think right now it is a good tipping point for us to gain gather momentum.

14:02

So Trinity Rail has led the effort with four other members and started a rail pulse coalition.

14:09

And so the intent is how do we proliferate the adoption of real time visibility and the the intent of that coalition is not only to evangelize that message in the rail industry,

14:24

but also to set some standards so we can help bring the technology on more simpler and to connect more,

14:31

more simply as well. And so those are just some of the things that's,

14:34

that's going on right now. We started with five members and we've now grown to seven and eight.

14:40

And so there's uh there's quite a bit of momentum gathered here in the last couple of years.

14:46

And so the coalition together, we have uh more than 30% all the uh North America uh rail car ownership is represented.

14:53

So we believe this is a gathering of critical mass now for Trinity specifically,

14:59

that's why we believed in the very first step in all of this is to lean in and connect our assets.

15:05

And so in the uh the last uh couple of years,

15:08

we've been working with customers connecting assets,

15:11

both using GPS sensors as well as uh integrating with uh some legacy technology as well.

15:19

So today, I'm happy to,

15:21

to, to share that with Renite our visibility dashboard.

15:24

We have of one out of every three cars that's moving in North America.

15:28

We have visibility too. And so I believe that by leveraging some of this big data to continue to train our machine learning models,

15:36

we will continue to have more predictive analytics that we can share with the shipping community and continue on the theme of making a rail easier to use and to invite more uh shipments on the rail.

15:51

One example of a machine learning outcome here and recently is our eta models or has made time of arrival predictors are 25% improved from the industry standard.

16:03

And so uh we're, we're happy with that first step and we're continuously working on more ways to do that.

16:10

I have a slightly different slant too on visibility and real time information.

16:15

Uh Trinity real believes in in this so much that uh we've also invested in a marketplace application.

16:23

And so what that is is putting the available cars that we have that are available for lease,

16:29

we put it on, on a portal and um make the inventory accessible for our customers who want to do some um window browsing and understanding what inventory,

16:41

what kind of car is available for, what kind of commodity uh giving a price range for them to understand and helping them complete their shopping process a bit faster.

16:51

24 7 self service, this is an industry first and uh we're leaning in with these type of innovations because again,

16:59

we believe in helping the customers um get more real time information,

17:04

get easier uh access to information and being transparent to help rail continue to grow as a mode.

17:11

Do uh do most of the new cars that you produce or most of the cars that you bring in to retrofit or upgrade?

17:17

Are they being retrofitted or produced with real time?

17:20

Visibility is that kind of a common theme these days?

17:23

I would say uh there's, there's probably still a little bit more runway on that and a little bit more lead time to,

17:29

to get to let's just call equipping Telematics as a standard procedure.

17:35

I think there's still a little bit of time to get there.

17:37

We have leaned in and many customers of ours have leaned in,

17:40

although it is not a standard practice yet.

17:43

I believe there are more and more of us in the rail industry that's adopting this,

17:48

that I think a critical mass is building.

17:50

So uh a good segue into a conversation about innovation,

17:54

you've talked about some of the innovation,

17:56

some of the many innovations that Trinity rail has espoused and implemented over the years.

18:01

Can you talk about some cases where you've pushed uh rail innovation uh in the industry and maybe some interesting stories about that?

18:09

Like maybe some of the the benefits or positive outcomes that either the industry at large has seen.

18:13

Our customers have seen. I mentioned a little bit about the the marketplace.

18:17

And um we're, we're looking at continuing to develop a new digital services for the customer.

18:24

You know, one of which is um our ability to also uh predict maintenance and predict not only maintenance then but also predict from one trip to the next,

18:36

what the probability of of an interruption will occur based on the car condition based on the geographies that's going to traverse.

18:44

And so that's an example of which um that we are putting into my,

18:48

a micro service. So that customers can subscribe to that with some very limited input and running it through our trained model that can help them make decisions on their shipments.

18:59

That's, that's one, one thing,

19:01

although doesn't sound as big,

19:04

I think it'll be very beneficial to customers,

19:06

especially with high value and sensitive shipments,

19:09

uh, to have a very good handle on what their likely outcome is.

19:13

Uh, before, uh, before it happens, of course,

19:16

and before they have to, uh, they're still at a decision point on what to do with the shipment.

19:20

Yeah, if you, if you're gonna have a rail car around for 50 years or more,

19:24

you, it's gonna go through probably a number of a number of cycles of,

19:28

of repair and maintenance during that 50 years.

19:30

Right. Uh, that's exactly right, Steve and something to keep in mind too is when you and I have a,

19:37

our automobile breaks down or something, you can,

19:39

uh, spend the minimal amount to get it towed to somewhere and it needs to be repaired for rail.

19:46

If it breaks down the amount that you will need to spend to get it the freight,

19:50

to get it from where it is bad word to where the shop is,

19:53

will, will take a bit of not only logistics of arrangements but also the freight spend as well.

19:58

So if you can catch this before it happens on the road,

20:01

then you can certainly save on freight just as important.

20:05

If not more importantly, the goods that are inside.

20:08

If it is perishable, you definitely don't want to take product loss either from that perspective.

20:13

So these are all benefits to help reduce exceptions and take variability down and give customers more advanced planning capabilities and decision making capabilities.

20:26

So we think of all these machine learning modules and helping make decision assist capabilities happen.

20:34

Um I do have a interesting uh thing that we were looking at with customers.

20:39

And so this just has to do with putting cameras on our rail cars and putting impact sensors and putting in door,

20:49

open, close sensors along with the communication gateway hub.

20:54

And so a suite of sensors and communication devices putting on some high value cars to ensure the food grade commodity is uh has a,

21:05

has a digital chain of custody going from point A to point B.

21:08

And so what we've seen is we had this,

21:11

this food grade customer that um was,

21:13

was seeing that there was a seals.

21:16

Um So when the door is closed, they put a seal on it to make sure that it is closed as physical evidence was being broken and route.

21:23

And so they came to us and asked us if we can put some gps and put uh sensor devices on and we added a camera on there.

21:31

So during the row, we, we can actually see when the impact happens,

21:36

sometimes it would break the seal. So even without a,

21:38

a person looking at that, that door or that hatch cover,

21:43

a certain kind of impact would break the seal and we were able to demonstrate that.

21:47

But then also, as we have seen, there are some that have uh or there are edge cases in which someone would try to access the,

21:54

the commodity in rau. When it was not supposed to be accessed,

21:58

the GEO fence would alert that,

22:00

hey, we're outside of where a norm of opening is and it triggers um other sensors to,

22:06

to see if the security is still there and then if it is not where the door was opened,

22:12

it triggered a camera to then take a picture of what happened.

22:15

So these are all linking things together,

22:18

which I think it brings us back to technology is great and the ability to integrate it with use cases to produce the outcomes that we need is even better.

22:27

You mentioned earlier in your conversation about that,

22:30

you know, ESG has been a longstanding tradition in the rail industry even before ESG became sexy as sustainability and ESG goals become more prominent in industry.

22:41

And you know, that's gonna be the trend now for the foreseeable future.

22:46

How can rail help a company or government agency support their ESG goals?

22:52

Yeah, Steve. Um So I mentioned a little bit earlier on the stat,

22:55

I love these fun facts. Uh because I think these,

22:58

these fun facts help anchor our narrative,

23:00

our talking point and help others understand.

23:03

So we're, we're bridging this uh maybe this,

23:06

this knowledge gap of rail and its benefit to the communities.

23:10

And so from all kinds of stats you can look up is uh rail again,

23:14

is the safest and form of,

23:17

of transportation. And so the most safest,

23:20

the most efficient and then most environmentally friendly as well.

23:23

So 400 miles or ton of freight only using one gallon of fuel.

23:30

And so that's a number to keep in mind.

23:32

It's uh a couple other fun facts uh for you,

23:35

for uh coal hauling coal,

23:38

which generates still the uh the majority of the energy here in the United States,

23:42

every 11 car of coal will uh generate enough power for 19 homes in a calendar year.

23:52

So that's all it takes. It's just one for um for one rail car of lumber,

23:58

it can build uh more than five homes.

24:01

And so this is the, these are the kind of efficiencies that rail provides and that's why it's uh continues to be important that we uh keep this uh front of mind for us to,

24:12

to think about when I think about how else can we help?

24:16

It's to continue to educate what trans load locations are and what intermodal locations are Trinity Rail through the acquisition of RSI logistics.

24:26

We now also have uh 29 sites of trans load locations.

24:31

So what that does is at the end points or the last mile of shipment locations,

24:37

both the first and last mile. We now have a terminal in which we can take goods long distance and be able to save fuel,

24:47

save energy and be a safer mode of transportation.

24:50

And these solutions bridge between two different modes.

24:55

And uh we have 29 of these today and we're looking to continue to grow our footprint and trans loading because we believe uh every one of these sites represent another win for uh for ESG.

25:09

So that's, that's one in the intermodal you mentioned earlier in intermodal is where containers come into a facility and leave a facility in a in a rail rail served uh location.

25:20

And these train that carry uh intermodal containers can carry 67,

25:26

800 containers in one train start.

25:29

And so that again uh proves how vital uh rail is playing in the ESG space.

25:37

And so you add up the intermodal which moves containers and trailers in large quantity long distance with the trans load.

25:45

Um option of serving the carload side which is anything from lumber to agricultural goods to energy products,

25:54

liquid products or bulk. These are all options in which we can help um move goods and participate in the in all of our ESG goals with respect to rail overall.

26:05

How can the supply chain industry take advantage of the opportunities there?

26:10

And what can be some of the maybe the positive impacts they could expect by adding rail as a mode to their current transportation network.

26:18

So, aside from what we mentioned earlier about the,

26:21

the ESG benefits, aside from being at the,

26:24

the, the most efficient, the safest and most cost effective,

26:28

I don't think I mentioned cost effective. It is the most cost effective mode of,

26:32

uh, of transportation as well. Well, it's kind of intuitive,

26:34

right, when it's, you know, that's the lowest cost of fuel,

26:37

there's not a lot of labor involved. Right. And then,

26:40

you know, and, uh, and once you've made the investment in the,

26:43

in the rail asset, it's pretty much a sunk cost.

26:46

And then it's just, you know, it's, uh, I, I've always known as a supply chain professional would be the lowest cost per ton mile compared to any other mode,

26:53

but people probably don't realize that that's exactly right,

26:56

Steve and I, and I'm glad that you accentuate that point.

26:59

So today, shipments, uh, sit on both ends of the supply chain in the first and last mile,

27:04

two thirds of the time. And so that's something that I think we collectively rail and adjacent modes.

27:12

Uh, we need to figure out how to compress these idle times because today,

27:16

when that happens, more assets are needed,

27:19

more resources are needed to move the goods.

27:22

And so the point is if we can squeeze some of the time out of the first and last mile,

27:29

then we would have accomplished less fuel,

27:32

we would have accomplished less idle assets.

27:35

We put more into use. Now, some would say,

27:38

well, Jim, you're part of trendy rail,

27:40

you guys lease cars, you make cars, don't you want things you want to own more cars,

27:44

more, more inefficiency? So we can make more.

27:47

And the, and the truth is no, no, not at all.

27:49

We want an efficient system.

27:51

We want it to be as efficient as possible because when it is efficient,

27:56

it becomes a more dependable source of transportation,

27:59

it becomes a more consistent form of transportation.

28:02

It only drives more volume into the rail space.

28:06

And what we want to see is our asset moving.

28:09

We don't want to see an idol, no one wants to see an idol.

28:11

So that's, that's for the benefit of the rail community and for Trinity rail.

28:16

So a moving asset is a good asset and that's what we want to see happen.

28:20

So that's why again, going back to where we bleed in is um not only as a asset provider,

28:27

both long term selling new one, short term,

28:29

leasing new one, but also having the maintenance services around it and having logistic service.

28:34

So we can take delays out and keep it moving.

28:36

We've also acquired trans load locations to give you options at both ends of the rail,

28:42

of the journey, rail journey so that you can utilize rail more and uh get them moving from A to B.

28:49

So these are all things that we're,

28:51

we're leaning in and uh providing uh solutions uh that will help um the uh the rail supply chain and,

28:58

and hopefully make a positive impact. Thanks.

29:00

We really appreciate you uh taking the time away from your busy schedule to join us today and,

29:05

and thank you again for participating in our Leaders Forum last year as we wrap up.

29:09

Do you have any final thoughts? Uh for our listeners can be on any topic you could talk about rail,

29:14

you could talk about innovation or you talk about, but you know,

29:16

something is just on the top of your mind. Do you have any final thoughts to share as we wrap up today?

29:21

Maybe a couple of thoughts. So rail has a lot of potential.

29:26

It's, it's done well over over the years and it has potential to do even more.

29:33

Uh Rail has lost modal share in the last 10,

29:36

20 years. And so what we need is more customer Centricity.

29:42

So I bring it back to why we acquired a logistics company is because we believe in uh customer Centricity.

29:53

And so bringing us closer with the customer with logistics capabilities,

29:59

helps us solve their problems and helps bring more uh shipments onto rail.

30:06

And so that's, that's one. And then from an innovation standpoint,

30:10

um I would just say recently,

30:12

I, I read an article on this on how generative A I is going to continue to help us in many ways.

30:18

And the one that this article zeroed in on was if we looked at the core of what we do depend,

30:25

it didn't matter what you do if it's your logistics professional and your core is how do you keep the shipment moving?

30:32

Or if you're a sales professional and the core of what you do is to serve the customer and have face time with them and help them.

30:39

This, this article talked about how on,

30:42

on average, we only spend about 30 to 40% of our time on the core of what we're supposed to be doing.

30:49

And so the balance of the time is spent on non value added activities.

30:53

It's just things that need to happen in order to serve the the core part of it.

30:57

So the supporting functions or the underlying functions almost becomes um most of our of our day.

31:05

Mhm And so this, this article talks about more generative A I application to take the repetitive task to take the non value added task out.

31:16

And by just making some subtle changes in that area,

31:20

it would drastically improve uh the core functionalities of what each of us do.

31:26

And so because we believe in that we're also testing uh generative A I as well to think about how do we continue to give time back to the core functions that not only do we do internally um but also for the customers to get back to what they do.

31:43

And that's the, the piece about the uh the innovation.

31:46

It sort of a, a topical thing right now and,

31:48

and how I see us playing, it sounds like a good topic for a future podcast,

31:52

Artificial Intelligence and how it's is has it uh revolutionized the rail industry?

31:58

Well, thank you everyone for listening in uh on the Penn State Supply chain podcast.

32:03

We were privileged today to be joined by Jim Pang,

32:05

the Vice President of New Services Development Innovation at Trinity Rail.

32:08

Jim. Thanks for joining us today and thank you for your time.

32:11

Thank you, Steve. Thanks for listening to the Penn State Supply chain podcast brought to you by the Center for supply chain Research at Penn State.

32:21

For information about our sponsorship opportunities,

32:23

research needs and professional development offerings.

32:26

Please visit smeal dot PSU dot edu forward slash CS cr.

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