In October 2018, our customer, Donau Chemie AG, received an award from Austria’s Federal Association for Materials Management, Purchasing and Logistics (BMÖ): The company was honoured for equipping it´s entire RID fleet with Track & Trace Systems.

„So far, a precise determination of the position of our cars in Europe was only possible to a limited extent and, moreover, involved a great deal of effort. Therefore, almost 2 years ago, we started a project with GATX in the course of which our entire fleet has been equipped with telematics. Today we know – and naturally our customers, too – in real time the location of each individual wagon.“ Explained Dr. Gerald Dums, Director of Technical Purchasing and Logistics at Donau Chemie.

The jury of the „Austrian Supply Excellence & Purchasing 4.0 Award 2018“ honoured the company with a recognition award for this innovation. Because the equipping of the railcars with the telematics systems has resulted in a significant success factor all along the value-added chain of the company.

Telematics: Many advantages through the localization around the clock.
Donau Chemie can determine the railcar locations at all times and so the downtimes can be reduced and the cycle rate of the deployment of the cars increased, explained Dr. Dums further. The customers of Donau Chemie will also benefit from the resulting advantages. „With geofencing we can also communicate proactively with our customers: For example, the system fully automatically generates an e-mail when the wagon is approaching the works gates – very helpful where the optimization of the entire loading and unloading processes are concerned“. At Donau Chemie the use of the telematics even ensures that production can be adjusted to the availability of the railcars: „Our decision to use telematics also has a considerable influence on our entire supply chain right up to the customer.“

Close collaboration with GATX
During this project, according to Dr. Dums, many challenges had to be overcome: „At Donau Chemie, wagons from four different suppliers are in use. Nonetheless, we wanted only one telematics solution and only one web interface in order to make the handling as simple as possible. In addition, we had to convince our customers that the certified equipment would not disrupt with the sensitive loading and unloading operations.“

From the planning to the implementation stage, GATX has been a reliable partner that, in close cooperation with Donau Chemie, overcame all occurring challenges. For the installation of the telematics, too, a cost-efficient solution was found that in no way obstruct the operating processes: „GATX trained our employees so that we could install the equipment on the wagons ourselves – and that at an operationally optimum point in time. And we have received a detailed introduction into the operation of the web interface. At all times the GATX team sat with us in the same boat and was always close at hand in this pilot project. Hence, together we have found an all-round individual solution to meet our requirements and, in the meantime, also have an individual portal that can be integrated into our entire wagon fleet.“

Concrete data from estimated values
In addition, Dr. Dums explained that the exact data of the telematics brought further financial benefits in the accrued costs as Donau Chemie now documents the arrival times of the products delivered to each location. Time estimates are now redundant, this was realized in the annual financial statement at the end of September.

Telematics has also already helped with a line closure in Landeck: „We knew straight away where our wagons were and were able to intervene immediately in order to avoid the closed section. This saved us and our customers not only time but, naturally, also money!“

You would like to know more about GATX telematics solutions? Please contact your GATX-Key Account Manager or write to us using our Contact form. We will be pleased to answer your questions and advise you.