Transforming Your Supply Chain

It’s all about the data – that doesn’t exist or is hard to get

These days everyone is talking about data – that data is the new gold, the new currency. Yet, in the supply chain sector there are 1,000s of companies that work together to get goods from A to B, making data collection and integration challenging. Added to that, the supply chain sector is just starting to let go of paper to go digital. That transformation is time consuming, costly and challenging. The big players are leading the way, and the smaller ones are working to also transform. 

The supply chain sector is just starting to let go of paper to go digital. That transformation is time consuming, costly and challenging.

 In the rail industry, we typically innovate on equipment, infrastructure, safety and technology focused on operating and optimizing mainline rail operations. The Class 1s are leaders in technology innovation – but they are only one part of a complicated multi-faceted supply chain. Thus, the big opportunities are in the between spaces: the origins, destinations, off main line segments and the modal transfers.  

The challenges: letting go of our trusted, known ways of doing things

Legacy, non-cloud based, multi-million dollar invested systems are the backbones of many companies supply chain management systems. Transforming to digitization is tough, risky and can be costly. Many organizations have “change fatigue” from trying, failing, innovating, and trying, failing, innovating over and over. Users are tired, leaders are tired, and the thought of yet another change – UGH

 

 

“The challenges: letting go of our trusted, known ways of doing things”

 

 Integrating multiple partners data

In the rail industry our partners are many and diverse (like any supply chain). From vessels, trucks, railways, shortlines, terminals, transloading terminals, shippers and railcar manufacturers, we all connect together to create the end to end supply chain. But our systems and technologies do not. The challenge is how to bring all that data – necessary for an end-to-end view of the supply chain – into one spot?

Data is not always in a database
Data can come to us via email, fax, text message, phone call, AEI reader, “eyes on it”, API, EDI, XML, Excel spreadsheet – how do we even start to bring that all into one place?  Not all partners in the supply chain can provide fast flexible easy to use data.

Merging operational and financial system data
Of all the things in supply chain – this one is both the worst and the most frustrating. Doing month end with aggregated invoices that don’t breakdown each shipment and its costs? Trying to run analytic engines to look for opportunities or do month end KPIs? It’s all historical, after the fact, and requires a degree in data science. Access databases, excel spreadsheets, manual record keeping – sound familiar?

A solution designed to get all the data

At Trinsight  (formerly known as Quasar) we have combined our 42 years of rail supply chain expertise with world class IOT, cloud, and digital technology companies that have over 60+ years of combined experience to create a platform that manages supply chains from origin to destination. We are a leading innovator of cloud-based internet of things technology and are a driving force in the digitization of the rail industry. Our ability to collaborate and innovate has enabled us to merge application data services with data processing services within our architecture. The Trinsight application suite, which includes yard management, shipment management and activity-based costing) collects and merges commodity, waybill, train manifest, cost per ton, cost per shipment, accessorial costs, and car location message data with the unified pipeline for GPS location sensors. We integrate all the data into one place, and then visualize that data through Explorer, a real-time analytical technology powered by SensorUp and customized for the rail industry.

 

 

A Solution Designed to get the Data

As the supply chain industry goes through its digital transformation, we recognized the need to merge old technology with new automated IOT technologies of the future. The supply chain industry is transforming, so building bridges and integrating old data methods with new automated IOT sensor data capture methods is key to providing a full picture of the supply chain.  

Integrating data from email, fax, AEI readers, EDI, Car Location Messages, Industry Reference Files, Shipper Waybills, GPS Location sensors, and Class 1 train manifests, our data provides a comprehensive end-to-end view to supply chain operations and performance. From origin mine or processing facility to destination customer or port, Trinsight creates, captures and integrates data to optimize the supply chain. The data is then made available through our application suite, Trinsight Explorer, Bastion Hosts, or other data query tools. 

 

 

Creating the Supply Chain Data Universe

Data collection, integration and analytics = optimized operations

At Trinsight, we know that it’s not easy to get the data and process it quickly.  We’ve created innovative solutions and relationships with a number of organizations to get the data into the data platform.  To clean it, organize it, metatag it and get ready for the next evolution into blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence. We know that the lessons we’ve learned and the challenges we’ve faced are faced by the industry – and we know that our relationships, lessons learned and experience developing solutions will be invaluable to optimizing the rail supply chain.