At BNSF, velocity isn't just a train-speed measure

— by Jeff Stagl, managing editor

In John Lanigan's office, a two-foot-tall foam hand sits prominently on the window sill. Instead of having one finger raised — like the "We're No. 1" variety sold at sporting events — the orange hand has two digits extended. The fingers form a "V" for the word "velocity," but not just for the traditional train-speed term. BNSF Railway Co. handed out hundreds of foam hands to employees late last year to promote a "Velocity" initiative, which challenges workers to assess every aspect of operations and find ways to take time out of every task.

Since mid-2006, dozens of teams comprising two to four employees have been analyzing work processes and operating systems, and recommending changes to save time — from several minutes to several hours. Their efforts are helping to improve fluidity. Now, intermodal equipment moves through a terminal quickly, coal trains load and depart faster, and employees receive work orders in a fraction of the time.

"It isn't one big idea, it's a bunch of little ideas," says BNSF Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Matt Rose.

And a little means a lot if Velocity helps maximize and expand capacity, increase equipment availability, shorten cycle times and boost on-time performance. If BNSF achieves those

Velocity goals, the foam hand will symbolize another "V" word — victory. As in winning more business and prevailing in the revenue-, income- and earnings-generation game.

"We're training people to think about velocity [because] it's the right way to improve the railroad," says Rose.

In For The Long Haul

The goals won't be met this year or anytime soon. Velocity is a long-term corporate commitment.

"It's not the flavor of the month, says Lanigan,

executive vice president and chief marketing officer. "Velocity is very transparent in our company and has long legs."

The initiative's impact already is apparent in just about every department. The Class I has made hundreds of operational and technological changes that are paying off in productivity and capacity gains.

But the railroad will need to wring more process changes from Velocity to keep chalking up victories. BNSF also will have to post improvements in five key areas identified by the Pyramid for Success, which the Class I introduced last year to emphasize ongoing objectives.

And the railroad has to continue reaching out to customers to help eliminate variances at a move's first and last mile — the biggest hurdles to boosting all-things Velocity. BNSF will if a key Velocity component, the AIM initiative, keeps the collaboration wheels in motion and car pick-up and drop-off changes coming.

Shippers are noticing a boost in BNSF's performance. In Bank of America Securities' third-quarter survey of 1,400 rail shippers, 27 percent of the respondents said the Class I offers the best rate relative to service provided, trailing only Norfolk Southern Corp. at 32 percent.

As Velocity continues to drive process change, customers, shareholders and employees can expect an even better-performing BNSF.

"We've been at this for more than a year and we're going to stick with it," says Rose. "We need to have sustainable changes."

On a tolerably hot late-July morning in Haslet, Texas, a truck stops at the entrance to BNSF Railway Co.'s Alliance intermodal terminal. The driver gets out and waits 15 minutes while a terminal worker inspects the trailer and assigns a parking space using a handheld radio frequency (RF) device.

BNSF uses Optimization Alternatives' Strategic Intermodal Scheduler (OASIS) system and RF devices at the terminal to electronically and quickly process in- and out-gate functions.

Those functions will be even faster by year's end, Manager of Hub Operations Joseph Lumbert explains.

To the north of the existing gate, the railroad is building a new gate that will feature optical character recognition technology and an automatic gate system so trucks won't have to stop to be inspected and processed. That'll save 10 to 15 minutes per truck at a 50-acre facility that averages 845 in-gate and 903 out-gate transactions daily.

BNSF already shaved about 15 minutes off truckers' drop-off time earlier this year by adjusting OASIS to provide a load's parking lot, row and spot numbers. Previously, truckers received only the lot and row numbers, and spent time looking for the correct parking space.

"Now, we can tell drivers where to put the load down to the spot," says Lumbert. "That's all about Velocity and productivity."

For BNSF, finding ways to save minutes or hours on hundreds of operational and technological processes is what the 18-month-old Velocity initiative is all about. If traffic moves faster along the network and the system has more capacity to take on more freight, the railroad can increase carloads and, in turn, revenue, income and earnings.

"The rail industry is being called upon to handle a higher percentage of freight, and clearly we need to produce," says Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Matt Rose.

To do so, Velocity teams — which are charged with determining ways to speed up and improve processes — don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel, BNSF execs say. Most of the time, a common sense approach or simple idea will suffice.

Making The Right Call

For example, a team recently analyzed train loading procedures at Power River Basin (PRB) mines, which load their own rail cars. Mines typically called BNSF crews to pick up a train after cars were loaded, but team members recommended the mines call when loading begins.

Now, the two to three hours crews need to arrive at a mine overlaps with the three hours required for loading.

Teams are "tuned into" eliminating waste, be it wasted time or capacity, says Rose. And they're tuned in at the local level to ensure changes made are permanent.

"We don't want guys from Fort Worth to show up and change something, and then everything goes back to the way it was after they leave," says Rose.

There's no going back to the old capacity and maintenance-of-way (MOW) planning procedures, execs say. One Velocity team determined MOW projects could be completed quickly if several gangs — such as rail, tie and bridge crews — worked together during the same time window, while another found the railroad could plan trackwork and capacity projects further in advance.

Last month, BNSF began adding more triple track to the 2,239-mile Transcon, the railroad's main intermodal route between southern California and Chicago that only recently has been completely double-tracked. To be completed next year, the 18-mile third mainline in southern California's Cajon Pass will push BNSF further ahead of the capacity-needs curve, says Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer Carl Ice.

So will filling in double-track sections in Nebraska next year to expand capacity on lines serving the PRB.

"We need to be one to two years ahead of capacity needs," says Ice.

'No Wiggle Room'

BNSF also is trying to clear obstacles that hamper asset utilization and fluidity. As part of a "Marketing Inputs to Velocity" service initiative called for in the Pyramid for Success (see below), a team has been examining customers' role in the utilization of private equipment, primarily tank cars and covered hoppers.

"There's no wiggle room on the network," says EVP and Chief Marketing Officer John Lanigan. "We're determining if there are cars online that are unnecessary to the system. Sometimes, cars just show up."

BNSF representatives are working with customers to analyze their car storage infrastructure and recommend improvements, and the equipment group is developing a more detailed private car inventory tracking system.

So far, the railroad has been able to convince several customers to build track at their facilities to meet their own car storage needs instead of paying BNSF to store cars, says Lanigan.

"It reduces their demurrage bills, which can be six figures a month in some cases," he says. "They have a choice, and in turn, can do something that's in their best interest and ours."

Teams also are analyzing BNSF's car fleet to identify specialty cars that aren't used often and cars that move empty to a loading location.

"We want to skinny the car types down over a long period of time," says Lanigan. "We want cars with broader applications, better utility of cars and more loaded cars."

BNSF execs also want locomotives to log less idle time in diesel shops. As part of a Pyramid for Success "Locomotive Velocity" service initiative, teams are trying to reduce maintenance and repair time by altering shop processes. In addition, the railroad is placing older locomotives in storage — since traffic volumes are down compared with last year — and using newer, more fuel- efficient power to reduce maintenance intervals.

The changes have paid off in a 2.3 percent boost in locomotive velocity. In the first quarter, locomotives averaged 290.7 miles per day (mpd) compared with 284.3 mpd in first-quarter 2006.

"We're all trying to use the same playbook and know what right countermeasures to take," says EVP and COO Ice.

Empowering Employees

Another way to boost velocity: reduce the time it takes a track inspector, signal maintainer or section foreman to phone in and obtain track authority from a dispatcher, and plan a day's schedule. A worker might wait a half-hour or more while a dispatcher handles several authority requests and train movement priorities.

So, a team comprising network control systems, engineering, transportation and technology services employees last year helped deploy more than 200 Employee-in-Charge (EIC) handheld computers that enable workers to obtain authorities electronically through BNSF's Train Management and Dispatch System (TMDS).

A dispatcher can view a request on a TMDS screen and grant authority if traffic flows permit. A worker receives the authority on an EIC screen. Authorities can be verified in 15 seconds instead of 60 to 75 seconds — multiplied by the 20 or 30 authorities a dispatcher grants each day — and workers no longer spend 30 to 60 minutes at the beginning of their shift waiting to start their work day.

A suite of Wabtec Corp. software BNSF began using in 2005 to replace a Centralized Traffic Control system, TMDS helps dispatchers issue, monitor, release, record and report train movement authorities. The system, which BNSF continues to roll out, can be controlled with a mouse instead of keystrokes.

"It takes multiple keystrokes down to one," says VP of Safety, Training and Operations Support Mark Schulze. "And we're getting more consistent decisions."

This month, BNSF also will implement a TMDS add-on designed to aid dispatchers' decision-making.

Displayed through TMDS, "Movement Planner" will monitor train movements and, recalculating every three seconds, recommend an optimal train command.

Realistic Expectations

A test run conducted earlier this year reduced a train's transit time by 1.8 hours, says VP of Technology Services Jeff Campbell, adding that Movement Planner is the "holy grail" of BNSF's latest technological improvements and a big Velocity play.

"Some of our Transportation Service Plans aren't realistic. You can get a domino effect of dispatchers sending trains over trains," he says. "Movement Planner will recommend you actually slow a train, which a dispatcher wouldn't ordinarily do because they feel they have to keep trains running, but the train will recover faster."

In addition, every engineer doesn't necessarily make the most optimal train-handling decision that reduces transit time or saves fuel. So, a team is testing New York Air Brake Corp.'s Locomotive Engineer Assist Display and Event Recorder system — which is used by Norfolk Southern Railway — and GE - Transportation's similar trip optimizer system, says Schulze.

The systems are designed to continuously monitor locomotive handling during runs in various regions and develop a "golden run," an engineer's most optimal trip based on train and topography conditions.

In The 'Xpress' Lane

Transportation managers have a new decision-support tool, too. An information technology team developed TSS Xpress, a Web-based front end for the green-screen, text-command-driven Transportation Support System (TSS) mainframe computer BNSF deployed in 1992.

Now, transportation managers can use the Internet to monitor more than 6,000 locomotives, 220,000 cars and 40,000 workers spread over more than 50,000 miles of track.

"We do about 32 million transactions a day on TSS, which has 3,200 commands — we'll shrink that down to about 50 Web-based screens," says Campbell. "Users can tailor data to their individual needs and personalize TSS Xpress like myYahoo.com."

TSS Xpress is designed to standardize functions so, for example, a trainmaster can view the same menu and be productive at any BNSF terminal. The system also can simplify TSS to provide the "right information at the right time for the right decision"; consolidate functions to speed decision-making and eliminate redundancy; and display information graphically to help new hires and others not familiar with the railroad more easily grasp a large amount of complex data.

In May, BNSF rolled out TSS Xpress at the Alliance terminal; the railroad expects to implement the system at terminals in Los Angeles, Lincoln, Neb., and Northtown, Minn., by summer's end, and remaining terminals by early 2008. The Class I also plans to tailor TSS Xpress commands for intermodal, mechanical and engineering managers.

"I'm excited about the next two years," says Campbell. "I believe we'll have technology that will serve us well for the next 15 years."

That includes a decision-support tool for service designers.

For the past nine months, designers have been using "Blocking Optimizer" software to determine an optimal blocking solution for merchandise trains.

"Before, we didn't have tools to support what blocks to make," says VP of Service Design and Performance Rollin Bredenberg. "We could over-estimate the capabilities of a certain terminal."

Transportation Service Plans have to be consistently executable, he says.

"What changes the least is train schedules, what does change is when trains arrive and how we define blocks," says Bredenberg.

Early next year, service designers also will begin using "Train Scheduler" software designed to determine the optimal way to put trains together.

Mechanical Marvels

Technological innovation continues to be a major focus for the mechanical department, as well — especially to boost predictive maintenance and velocity.

By year's end, the railroad expects to install 56 hot and five cold wayside wheel detectors systemwide.

Used by Canadian railroads for several years but new to BNSF, the infrared-based detectors are designed to gauge wheel temperature and determine possible causes for elevated temperatures, such as defective handbrakes or air-brake components that could stop a train.

"By the end of the year, we'll be able to look at 90 to 95 percent of all brake systems," says VP of Mechanical and Value Engineering Craig Hill.

The railroad also plans to install Fully Automated Car Train Inspection (FactIS) systems at yards in Alliance and Bellen, N.M. The vision-based wheel profile system is designed to measure flange height and thickness, rim and brake shoe thickness, and back-to-back spacing.

"FactIS is a way to do automatic inspections of cars," says Hill. "We can compare photos to see if brake shoes and wheel profile is normal or something needs to be replaced."

Top Priority

Also new to BNSF: an open-top inspection system. Recently installed in Blytheville, Ark., the system features a combination of high-resolution line-scan cameras and strain gage technology that inspect open-top cars and identify load shifts.

"We don't want derailments caused by pipe falling out of an open-top car," says Hill.

In addition, BNSF is establishing its first "super site" in Stockholm, Wis., where several wayside detectors will be installed to provide a litany of data and composite alarming systems. The site will feature hot and acoustic bearing detectors, a truck performance detector and wheel impact load detector.

"It's all about 'pinpoint' maintenance and gaining velocity from the reliability of rolling stock," says Hill.

BNSF could take predictive maintenance a step further if technology existed to accurately detect subsurface defects in wheels and axles, he says.

"It used to be that burnt-off journals were the No. 1 derailment issue, but now it's wheels and axles," says Hill. "We're looking at ultrasound- and laser-based technologies to look at subsurface defects, and we think we'll have a prototype to test next year."

Down To The Minute

Earlier this year, mechanical department crews began implementing a new in-train wheel changing process at BNSF's Alliance, Neb., terminal that's low-tech compared with laser systems but high in maintenance and velocity payoffs.

Crews use a hydraulic scissor jack and forklift to change wheels in the field instead of sending the car to a shop. Wheel changes now take about 30 minutes vs. a few days.

No matter the time savings achieved in a particular process or task, the minutes and hours are adding up to big-time productivity and capacity gains for BNSF.

And the railroad will need to continue deriving benefits from Velocity because there's so much more to be gained, execs say.

"Sixty percent of the time, a car's not moving, and there's still times a car is under a customer's control," says CEO Rose.

To keep the speed-it-up ideas coming, BNSF is relying on each employee, from a lawyer involved in a project's permitting process to a purchasing department worker who's responsible for obtaining track materials.

"We're trying to get everybody involved," says Rose. "Everyone has a role."