Software to hardware
The Austrian rail logistics enterprise Innofreight, headquartered in Bruck / Mur, is using the options presented by digitalisation to take its logistics processes to a higher level. ITJ correspondent Josef Müller found out more.
Innofreight IT Solutions is the name of a subsidiary that Innofreight founded last year, and where all the threads of its digital progress now come together. “New business models and a digital fleet are the big goals that we’re set to focus on in the coming months and years,” as Innofreight IT Solutions CEO Isabella Legat told the ITJ recently.
She’s gathered a small and dedicated team of IT experts around her; they rack their brains to find the best way to equip the various transport containers and wagons developed by Innofreight over the past 18 years with sensors, so that companies’ entire transport process can be mapped digitally.
The power of data
Sensors provide data via GPS, for example on mileage, speed during transport, the location of loading equipment and wagons, vibrations, loading status and yet more information that helps make the entire transport process transparent. “Being able to call on all of this information about the entire transport chain at the click of a mouse is a plus point with a really big impact,” Legat explains.
Innofreight is currently testing various sensor technologies, and is satisfied with the available products. Legat believes that “sensor manufacturers are very innovative.” The aim is to find out which sensors can best be integrated into the firm’s fleet, are capable of providing good data streams and create sustainable customer benefits. The programmers are also thinking about how the maintenance of containers and wagons can be optimised, to avoid too long idle times.
So far, Innofreight has made a name for itself primarily with innovations in the hardware sector, namely with the development of containers and wagons that can be flexibly combined with each other. Now it wants to create greater added value through the deployment of the right software.
A digital plus point
“We want to offer customers digital monitoring solutions from the loading process to unloading, through a platform that we’re currently implementing,” Legat specifies. The integration of the logistics processes into a customer’s ERP system is an important and central part of this process.
Sensors provide all sorts of relevant data from along the transport route, which customers can call up from the platform and decide on the next steps on that basis. According to Legat, innovations in the rail logistics industry aren’t necessarily very complicated, but they offer great added value for those who transport their goods by rail.
For the timber industry, for example, it is important to know where a wagon is at any given moment, because loading points are usually very distant and it’s not always clear from the outset when rolling stock will be ready for the transport. Today, geofencing can be used to precisely define the local scene; for example, when a train enters a loading station, and when it leaves it again. This makes it possible to show how long the loading or unloading took.
Reduce idle times and empty runs
In addition to the platform, Legat is also working on an equipment pool, in which defined wagon capacities and loading equipment can be shown to be available or not. If capacities are free, interested shippers can book them. This will reduce idle times and empty runs, and optimise transport rotations. A train configurator will also to be connected to this tool, which will allow managers to assemble trains precisely, on the basis of the real-time data.
Legat is convinced that the benefits of digital steps lie in the modular system, which makes rail transport more competitive and helps shift goods from the roads to rail.
