Canadian Operational Research Society

Calgary Section

http://www.corscalgary.org/

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SEMINAR

When: Noon to 1:30 PM, Friday, February 18, 2005

Room 217

TransCanada Tower

450 - 1 Street SW

(See attached map)

SPEAKER

Phil Ireland, Assistant Vice President Product Design

Canadian Pacific Railway

Calgary, AB

TOPIC

CPR Transforms Operations by Using Models to Develop Integrated Operating Plan

Abstract:

North America railways have traditionally practiced tonnage-based dispatching, running trains only when they have enough freight. As a result, their customer service and their use of crews, fixed assets, locomotives and railcars are poor. Canadian Pacific Railway is using new decision support tools developed in house and by Multimodal Applied systems to create a scheduled railway. These tools use operations research approaches, such as optimal block-sequencing algorithm, a heuristic algorithm for block design, very fast simulation, and time space network algorithms for planning locomotive use and distributing empty cars. This implementation has saved $ 300 M from mid-1999 through autumn of 2000. It is estimated that it has saved at least an additional $ 210 M during 2001 and 2002 in fuel and labour costs alone. Labour productivity, locomotive productivity, fuel consumption, and railcar velocity have improved by 40, 35, 17 and 41 percent respectively. Furthermore Canadian Pacific Railway now provides its customers with substantially improved reliability in delivery times and has received many customer and shipping association awards for its improvements in service. CPR was winner of the prestigious 2003 Franz Edelman Award for excellence in application of Operation Research and Management Science for this work.

About the Speaker

Phil Ireland is Assistant Vice President, Product Design of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Canadian Pacific Railway, recognized internationally for its scheduled railway operations, is a transcontinental carrier operating in Canada and the U.S. Its 14,000-mile rail network serves the principal centers of Canada, from Montreal to Vancouver, and the U.S. Northeast and Midwest regions. CPR feeds directly into America's heartland from the East and West coasts. Alliances with other carriers extend its market reach throughout the U.S. and into Mexico.

Phil started his career with Canadian Pacific in 1983 as a Research Engineer in Montreal. Since then he has held a variety of positions in Mechanical Services, Internal Audit/Consulting Services, Marketing & Sales and Transportation/Field Operations. Phil was appointed to his current position in June 2002 and in this role is responsible for ensuring that CPR’s integrated operating plan meets customer needs, while optimizing asset utilization and maximizing cash flow/profitability. In addition, he is accountable for leading product design alliance projects with class 1 railroads.

Phil holds a Bachelors of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering from Queen’s University (1983) and a Masters of Business Administration from McGill University (1989).