Crossgate Facilitates International Rail Transport

Bad Honnef based TX Logistik chooses Crossgate to ensure continued smooth operation of the freight transport on the European rail network.

October 9th, 2007 - Starnberg - Logistics on rails is the business of the German private railway company TX Logistik AG based in Bad Honnef. To ensure continued smooth operation of the freight transport on the European rail network some strong partners were needed to deal with the organizational aspects of the information superhighway. Since June, TX Logistik’s customers and service providers have been able to find out themselves the current status their projects at any point in the process thanks to the data link-up via Crossgate’s Business Integration Platform B.I.P.

Experience is what counts

TX Logistik AG designs and operates complex transport chains. It mainly focuses its activities on transporting freight on railways between northern and southern Europe. TX Logistik’s customers include a wide variety of well-known companies from industry, trade and commerce. The various elements necessary to carry out its services – its modern, company-owned engines and rolling stock, its quality-conscious engine drivers, the procurement of track and power plus the integration of port and terminal operations – are all linked together to form a seamless and transparent chain of services. TX Logistik has come up with a number of innovative solutions involving various means of transport that have put it in a favourable position with respect to the European Union’s Marco Polo project, which has the aim of shifting the transport of goods from the road onto the rails.

As the number of customer orders increased significantly as a result of this, TX Logistik decided it needed to look for a business partner capable of implementing its standard internal logistics processes and those concerned with railway transport in an IT solution. The company’s existing infrastructure consisted of standard office PCs that were used to run customer applications written in Java. The objective of this project, known as “CargoStar online”, was to optimize its computer-based material planning in order to maximise the use of trains and improve its customer service. The company’s capacities are largely taken up by high-volume corporate customers who reserve a fixed quantity of rolling stock, and any free room it happens to have is sold to smaller customers at short notice. A reliable and fast system was required by all the parties involved for this purpose.

In addition to facilitating smooth communication between TX Logistik and its business partners, the intention was to create a powerful yet simple and straightforward system by which to strengthen its market position. Automation and data synchronisation were basic prerequisites for meeting these requirements. The efficiency of TX Logistik’s order management and material planning processes was to be improved by speeding them up, reducing the incidence of errors and integrating the new system into its existing IT activities. The concept behind CargoStar” provides its partners with various price options and degrees of availability, all of which are tailored to customers’ requirements. This would create a significant competitive edge for TX Logistik due to the fact that all of these processes can be implemented on a single platform. Furthermore, the transport company wanted to obtain a better source of data for its invoices and reporting.

A solution is found

Ultimately, it was Starnberg-based EDI specialist crossgate whose bid succeeded to win in an international competition. Its order management system is based on proven IT-structures that work reliably and also benefits from Crossgate’s ample experience in capturing data and translating customer requirements into IT functionality. “Crossgate is a specialist who’s capable of optimising our IT infrastructure quickly and stably,” says Burkhard Bräkling, Director of Business Development/IT at TX Logistik.

Successful co-operation

The Business Integration PlatformTM is employed for the entire order processing procedure, which includes both road and rail transport. Besides message mapping being linked up, a supply chain event management module called Viewlocity Control Tower marketed by crossgate’s partner Quyntess (based in Gorinchem, Holland) was implemented with a view to tracking cargo shipments along entire transport routes. When combined with B.I.P.’s functionality, the modular structure of this software application makes up a unique IT logistics solution. Since an EDI interface has been built into it, small and medium-sized firms are also able to communicate with TX Logistik via the standardised WebEDI. As well as contributing the supply chain module to the solution, Quyntess developed and deployed three further modules for order processing, material planning and status reporting. Thus, by working together, these competent partners managed to create the ideal system for TX Logistik’s ambitious project. “The fact we were able to meet the requirements laid down by TX Logistik was partly due to Quyntess’ expertise in the areas of supply chain management and optimising and implementing software solutions,“ explains Stefan Tittel, CEO and founder of Crossgate. “The seamless integration of crossgate’s services, the straightforward platform and the user-friendliness with respect to planning and implementation made us a good team right from day one.“

Rapid implementation and commissioning

The development and programming of the system were completed in just a few months. As for the implementation itself, this took approximately eight weeks’ time. The system has been operational since June 2007. Currently, the entire management of orders and transport capacity is being conducted via Crossgate’s Web-based technology. This includes customers generating orders via a Web interface or an XML/EDI software interface, order planning and monitoring by TX Logistik’s staff and real-time order tracking along the whole transport chain on behalf of the customer. The service companies at the terminals are directly involved in the handling of orders, integrated performance management and reporting as well as in the simplified invoicing procedure. The project is now available in German, English and Italian versions and has been implemented in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark and Sweden so far. Further system enhancements are planned, one of which is the implementation of additional data interfaces.

---