photo: Archives/Railway
The GRAMPET Group with its subsidiary company Grup Feroviar Roman (GFR) are working intensively on 18 new IT technologies, another 20 technologies have already been launched. The GRAMPET Group is thus following the rail transport trends, which have been further accelerated by the Coronavirus.
Next year, a connecting application should be launched. This application will collect the necessary data from other applications. Thus, responsible persons could receive comprehensive overviews of information about locomotives, wagons, trains, staff, timetables, etc. Operational planning would again be a bit easier.
Another major innovation was the development of an electronic consignment note, which has replaced 90 % of the printed GFR contracts already. It has been already used by almost all major companies dealing with petroleum products. The GFR handles approximately 7,000 shipments per month. Using paper forms for such a large amount of shipments was expensive, time consuming, and the data had to be manually transcribed into the system. The electronic form has significantly accelerated this also these operations.
The GFR tested a new application based on a new performance indicator from June to September. The data was updated in real time every 5 minutes. During this period, according to the data obtained, the speed of transport increased by approximately 15 %. The company also broke its own speed record. All due to the use of a new, smart application.
“Competitiveness in a company is closely linked to its level of digitization today and this year’s health and economic crisis has once again confirmed it. This is what we anticipated from the beginning, as we have constantly been investing time and resources into the development of innovative solutions to optimize our business, ” Gruia Stoica, the President and founder of the GRAMPET Group stated in the media.
The long-term strategic goal of the GRAMPET Group is also the digitization of the organizational level of transport. Therefore, an analysis and internal evaluation of activities that can be automated and digitized in this process is now being performed. At the same time, the expert team is working to prevent cyber threats, which are currently also an increasingly important topic. The GRAMPET Group therefore supports digitization, but on a secure basis.
Another digitization process is being handled by the Grup Feroviar Roman, which has launched an application in Romania called the Shunting expert. All major [VP1] refineries in Romania are implementing this into their systems. Some already use it. This application provides a real-time overview of the position of cars and their technical and commercial condition. This application is especially beneficial for operators who can make appropriate decisions much faster. The operator can also use the Command of Train Service Personnel (CTDP) application, which allows a better allocation of human resources for the continuous operation of trains. This application also serves as a training tool for new employees, whose job will be to plan individual trains.
The development of these applications is significantly supported by the Institute of Computer Science, which has been part of the GRAMPET Group since 2008. This is certainly a great benefit for the whole group. Trends in automation and digitization on the railways are evolving rapidly and are being implemented by most companies on the market. These trends are also related to some of newly emerging technologies. The railway industry therefore expects major innovations in the coming months and years.