Decision Support Systems and Business Intelligence
1.1 NORFOLK SOUTHERN USES BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR SUCCESS
/One of the four large freight railroad in US.
/NS moves approximately 500 freight trains across 21,000 route miles in 22 eastern states.
/NS has more than $26 billion in assets and employs over 30,000 people.
/For more than a century, NS makes money by managing their costs
/Managers focused on optimizing the use of railcars to get the most production out of their fixed assets.
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1.1 NORFOLK SOUTHERN USES BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE FOR SUCCESS
/In 1980, the industry was partially deregulated, which opened up opportunities for mergers and allowed companies to charge rates based on services and enter into contracts with customers.
/On-time delivery became an important factor in the industry.
/NS responded by becoming a “scheduled railroad”--developing a fixed set of train schedules and a fixed set of connections for cars to go between trains and yards.
/NS required new systems that would first use statistical models to determine the best routes and connection to optimize railroad performance, and then apply the models to create the plan that would actually run the railroad operations.
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