INFORM has announced that it has successfully deployed its Syncrotess Optimisation Plus solution at Norfolk Southern’s Rossville terminal just outside of Memphis, Tennessee enabling the terminal to have transparency of their stacked operations.
In particular, the go-live at Rossville is the first of two planned go-lives this year, the second being scheduled at their larger, Austell facility located just outside of Atlanta, Georgia.
INFORM deploys stack management and crane optimizer at Norfolk Southern’s Rossville Terminal
INFORM’s optimisation solution takes a modular approach to add advanced intelligence to a terminal’s existing TOS.
INFORM said, “This path allows them to isolate the terminal’s specific challenges and provide a bespoke solution for their specific operational challenges. As an add-on optimization solution, Norfolk Southern have built the required optimisation on top of their existing Terminal Operating System (TOS) OPTCS.”
INFORM has a suite of six industry proven optimisation modules designed to improve operational efficiency reducing operational costs and allowing for improved revenues, namely, Crane Optimiser (CO), Yard Optimiser (YO), Vehicle Optimiser (VO), Train Load Optimiser (TLO), Rail Scheduler (RS), and Machine Learning (ML) modules.
At the same time, Norfolk Southern is using INFORM’s Yard Optimizer (YO) to intelligently manage their stacked operations. The Yard Optimiser works in conjunction with TOS to allocate storage locations for containers within the yard as well as a suitable handover location, or transfer spot, for external trucks to use to minimize travel distance for the container into and out of the stack.
Rafael Velasquez, director of Optimisation and Integration at INFORM’s Terminal & Distribution Center Logistics Division, commented, “After several successful live tests and careful planning, the entire team was confident in the solution going live at Rossville. Now, we’re laser focused on the next challenge with taking the system live at Norfolk Southern’s larger operation in Austell.”
