Excerpt from Cargo Freight Journal, Issue 11/23
Almost every business process in railway companies has now been digitised. This has resulted in countless individual digital components that all too often require manual data transfer from one software to the other – with many frictional losses. The challenge: modeling a powerful overall system using standards.
More and more managers of railway companies are complaining that they have less time for their actual core business. It is almost always the same reason: companies have to put too much effort into IT issues. Where does this dilemma come from despite the high level of digitalisation? After all, most companies now use numerous powerful software systems, for example for enterprise resource planning (ERP), personnel and duty planning, vehicle dispatching, timetabling, operational scheduling or customer information.
As always, the devil is in the detail. Most programs function as self-sufficient individual systems, while the operating processes are closely interlinked. Companies therefore have to deal with many media discontinuities – see illustration – which significantly impact efficiency. [...]
