Green Cargo, the largest railway cargo carrier in Sweden, owns the world’s best system for distributing empty freight cars. Now they can transport more goods with a substantially decreased use of resources.

A Unique Control System VADIS is a real-time system that continuously optimizes the production plans to meet new customer demands, and maintain the most effective transportation flow. The most unique feature is that VADIS makes decisions on its own. It will in fact deploy the plan by generating transport orders and shunting instructions automatically.

Öyvind Söby, Manager of Locomotives and Wagons at Green Cargo says We take great pride in VADIS and that we managed to develop such an advanced tool. We have been able to increase delivery performance and quality for empty cars to customers, as well as reducing the number of wagons in use. The system and the changed work process around it truly save money,” says Öyvind Söby. "This success was possible through the cooperation of many parties, where the people at Carmen Consulting have played a key role," he concludes.

A User Success
Previously 25 persons controlled the empty freight car distribution. Today there are five persons working with the distribution planning and supervising the system.

“It is a fantastic system. The more we work with it, the better we can utilize the fleet of cars,“ says Ann- Britt Edvardsson. “But the system is not everything. We must make sure that the information that it uses is trustworthy and that data is reported correctly. That requires great knowledge and a contact network that cannot be replaced.”

The system has been gradually implemented since 1999, and the last bulk of freight cars were successfully incorporated in 2002. Carmen Consulting and their partners have implemented the core parts of VADIS and continue to improve the system in cooperation with Green Cargo.

Savings and Benefits
Yearly savings are estimated to EUR 7.8 million, due to:
• Decreased capital and maintenance costs
• Decreased staffing requirements
• Insourcing the planning of certain car types

Some other benefits are
• Better utilization of the vehicles
• Greater precision towards customers
• Decreased acquisition costs