A spreadsheet decision support optimization model for railcar storage at Canadian Pacific Railway

R L Espey and J Balakrishnan
Additional contact information
R L Espey: Canadian Pacific Railway, Calgary, Canada
J Balakrishnan: Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2012, vol. 63, issue 2, 139-150

Abstract: Canadian railway companies operate in a capital-intensive segment of the transportation industry. In most railway companies, the covered hopper railcar fleet is one of the larger fleets due to its use in moving grain and potash, commodities that move large volumes of product. This railcar fleet is also difficult to manage due to demand seasonality and joint commodity use. This paper demonstrates how an aggregate planning model can be used to support decision making related to optimization of covered hopper railcar storage. Exploratory research prior to model development involved interviews with company personnel. The model was developed through quantitative research and implemented using spreadsheet optimization. The results indicate that using this model can reduce the total cost of storage through effective planning. The model also provided insight to improve railcar storage such as the elimination of excess storage locations and the need to do further investigation. The company is in the process of implementing suggestions from this paper.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v63/n2/pdf/jors2010178a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v63/n2/full/jors2010178a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:63:y:2012:i:2:p:139-150

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/41274

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Operational Research Society is currently edited by Tom Archibald and Jonathan Crook

More articles in Journal of the Operational Research Society from Palgrave Macmillan, The OR Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().