Majówka [the May Day Picnic] at CTL Logistics while working. The 1st May this year the CTL Logistics company has completed the main implementation stage of the IT system intended for railway carriers - RailSoft. The system manages the processes of railway logistics, commercial, planning, settlement of transports, repairs of locomotives and wagons as well as management of railway documentation. It supports the process of competency management in the area of training, periodic, qualification and verification examinations as well as periodic training of personnel employed in positions related to the freight car maintenance process, as well as employees directly related to the operation and safety of railway traffic.
Grzegorz Bogacki, President of the Management Board of CTL Logistics:
"Advanced technologies are now an indispensable element of the management of the Company and its processes. More and more information is difficult to process and analyze, therefore it is necessary to create systems to improve the flow of information in order to manage it more effectively and at a sufficiently high quality level. The RailSoft system has been supporting CTL Logistics since 1st May. The implementation of this IT tool will allow the Company to enter a completely new level, replacing an unintuitive and imperfect IT system supported by hundreds of handcrafted spreadsheets with one online system ”.
At the same time, President Bogacki adds:
“Each piece of information is a necessary part of the decision-making process, but only properly processed, reliable and on time enables correct decisions to be made. Railroad is not an easy topic, especially freight rail. In order to the offer for the transport service to be accepted by the customer, it requires preparation of it on the basis of hundreds of own data, ranging from the available power, resources in the form of people and equipment, travel routes, owned timetables, communicated closings and ending with the forecast downtime at reloading terminals or in ports. These are the data that the system will generate on the basis of hundreds of rolling stock information entered in recent months, as well as based on current information from employees serving on the tracks. It is a very difficult project, the implementation of which involved dozens if not hundreds of people. They did a great job under the watchful eye of the project sponsor, Andrzej Pawłowski - a member of the CTL Logistics Management Board responsible for the entire operations division. Andrzej brought the project to life, he was the person authorized to make all key decisions in the project, also redefining the scope, budget or duration of the project. Good job".
The carrier, for the needs of the RailSoft system, has equipped several hundred loco drivers and railway auditors with mobile tablets, which enable direct feeding of the RailSoft central system with data, excluding paper reports directly from the field. These are the data that feed the system on an ongoing basis from the 1st May. This has a direct impact on the quality of planning, the circulation of locomotives, traction teams and the very implementation of transports.
In real time, it is possible to obtain information on all resources, wagons and locomotives at our disposal, taking into account both the circulation of trains and the regions of Poland in which they are currently located. We can also order timetables from PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe S.A. directly from the system. We also have access to information about the availability of train crews. This is a completely new quality. The system allows you to generate automatic reports from individual drivers' nests on several hundred employees scattered throughout the country, which will definitely affect the quality of the current planning of staffing, but also responding to emergencies such as unplanned track closures or shortages of capacity on lines and terminals. This information in the module dedicated to dispatchers is a complete set of knowledge in one place, on one screen, starting from the train number, route, through the analysis of all relevant parameters, planned departure / arrival times along with the locomotive number, up to the name of the loco driver, railway auditor, shunting master who made the train prepare for the journey and lead, as well as current information on the implementation of the journey, sent from the SEPE system integrated with the RailSoft system of PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe SA
specifies Andrzej Pawłowski, Member of the Management Board of CTL Logistics. At the same time, he adds:
“The tool is one thing, but the greatest recognition is due to people, because they are the most important in any project. Both the employees of the CTL Group and those of the contractor, i.e. Petrosoft, worked together in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was extremely difficult for implementation and communication. Thousands of meetings, hundreds of software changes and thousands of tests were conducted using remote communication, which required additional focus, commitment and motivation. These hours spent together on the development of the RailSoft system for the needs of CTL Logistics, joint tests, made this system surely one of the most modern railway logistics systems in Poland, and even in Europe ”.
The RailSoft system provides the Company with access to strategic resources, i.e. information that will definitely affect the efficiency and quality of planning and bidding. Subsequent modules planned to be implemented will have a direct impact on the quality of customer service, including enabling them to access all cargo data in real time. In one sentence - CTL Logistics currently has the most technologically advanced IT system for railway logistics in Poland.