Operations management
calculate pay, and can also take into account when a particular employee might be working a late shift to avoid scheduling them for an early shift the next day.
“The system understands that a train manager might be on the train to Turin, but lives in Rome, so it can schedule their day so they are on connecting trains and ultimately end up where they started,” Broggio says. Each NTV staff member interacts with the Quintiq system using NTV’s smartphone app. Through this platform staff relay any information about the journey and the trains, and update information about their agenda. They also check in and out of an activity through the application which will tell the Quintiq system that a specific activity has been completed, and by whom.
In addition to train crew, Quintiq’s system manages train movements and operations for NTV. The system stores
logistical information and schedules cleaning and maintenance activities which take place at NTV’s depot in Nola by forwarding information to the third parties responsible for these activities (see panel). The comprehensive nature of the system and Quintiq’s methodology requires the customer to interact extensively with the software team during the development process. NTV began working with Quintiq on the solution in 2010, and Broggio says that this long-term process is essential to reducing the risk of providing the wrong solution and potentially wasting a lot of time.
He adds that Quintiq’s aim when developing an operations management system is to create a feasible plan which makes the best use of resources. He says the big challenge when it came to the NTV solution, as well as any other that it has engaged in, is simply to ensure the system works. If it does not, the
operator could suffer poor reliability, with the risk of reputational damage to both the train company and the supplier.
“Quintiq’s work with NTV was a major challenge because we had to do everything all together,” Broggio says. “As a startup, NTV has to build up their system from scratch, although because they are using only one type of rolling stock and solely a high-speed operator it made life a little easier for us.”
Ms Mariagrazia Mecoli, a business consultant at Quintiq, says that now that the system is up and running the emphasis has shifted from resource planning to resource optimisation to enable the operator to identify the best possible scheduling solution, and to get more out of the system. An automatic algorithm is used which generates alternative schedules to cope with potential disruption. “If a certain crew is on one train
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