Case Study

Procurement / Sourcing,

We have supported the Railroad Industry for many years and are constantly trying to design and implement systems in the effort of efficiency.  The industry is ever evolving and growing, and we understand how difficult it is to introduce new procedures on both ends.  We believe railyardsupply.com is the next step in Railroad efficiency.

Please allow me to explain how railyardsupply.com can benefit your yards;

This experiment is conducted on the theory that ordering parts on railyardsupply.com vs. the phone is faster.

After monitoring numerous trials throughout the past couple weeks, I see an average time on the phone ranging between 30-40 min over an average of 2-3 phone calls when the customer knows what system they are working on, but slightly unsure of the item they need.  This amounts to an average range of 60-120 min spent on the phone to make an order for replacement parts.

I separately tested 4 of our service technicians, who are on the rail yards every day, by asking them to locate 3 different items on railyardsupply.com to see how long it would take them.  The items were sand wands, an air pressure gauge, and a Morrison brothers high level alarm replacement battery.  From sign in to checkout, the process ranged between 13-19 minutes.  They were able to recognize which system they were working on and able to filter their results from there.  They identified items by the picture, so they were confident they were getting what they needed.

In the case where a customer knew what they wanted, the average time to pick up the phone, call, wait for someone to answer, chat with them about what they needed, confirm shipping address information, and say goodbye ranged between 8-14 minutes.

I tested a fellow project member in the same scenario where I asked them to find sand wands, an air pressure gauge, and a Morrison brothers high level alarm replacement battery.  They were familiar with railyardsupply.com.  It took this person 1-1/2 minutes to sign in, add the items to the cart, and checkout.

As we can see, in this experiment, familiarizing with and utilizing railyardsupply.com vs. the phone significantly reduces time spent ordering items.  Over time, this will equate to infinite minutes wasted ordering replacement items for the Railyard.  Since this is designed specifically for the Rail Yard, all items can be purchased in one place, eliminating the need to repeat this process over and over with multiple vendors.  Also, it is easy for your employees to enter their own P.O. numbers during checkout.  We will continue to bill on net 30 terms as common practice between CWI and business relationships.

We would like to partner with you to produce what we believe is a more efficient Rail Yard.  We understand that this is met with resistance, but we believe it is the next step in the evolution of the Railroad.  We strongly believe that this will save money for your organization by allowing your employees more time to focus on keeping locomotives running.  We have ensured that the website is designed to work seamlessly in the field as well, because, from our research, we see that 72% of our users are accessing railyardsupply.com from a smartphone.  We could even provide, for example, sand wands, pinch valve sleeves, filters, etc. on a recurring basis.

Please let me know how we can encourage your employees to use railyardsupply.com and let me know any of your question or concerns.  How can we become part of your internal procurement system?