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Short Line Data Systems Inc. ROCS Update – December 2002
Website: www.sdsrocs.com
Greetings to all and we hope that you had a happy Thanksgiving.
Things have gotten busy around here to close out the year, and in this update we will be announcing a new customer, a new subversion with a new look, and an update on the in-house car hire system.
New Customer
We are happy to welcome the Housatonic Railroad Company (HRRC) to the SDS ROCS family. We are currently in the build process for their system, and we anticipate that installation will take place in a few weeks.
New Subversion
We have released a new subversion of ROCS 5, version 5B. 5B incorporates new performance improvements, and a number of revised screens. The performance improvements come from some streamlining of the processes that take place “behind the screens”, as well as some housekeeping that makes ROCS easier to install on a user’s system.
The most visible improvement in Version 5B is the new screens for Customer Status, Advance Cars, and many other sub-screens. The new screens incorporate larger type, new arrangements that cut down on the amount of side to side scrolling that the user has to do, and color bars that make the screens easier to read. The Online section of the Customer Status screen also incorporates colors in the Request Date, Place and Release sections that correspond to the colors in the Status field. The Advance Cars screen is also greatly improved, with a new layout and bigger type.
Pictures of the new screens can be seen on the website.
The impetus for all of these changes has come from the users, both current and potential. As we all know all too well, there is a huge amount of information that we need to have access to quickly, and the presentation of this information is one of the hardest things to get right. That said, this is the first major revision that we have made to these screens since Version 1, We feel that these improvements make ROCS even easier to use than before, and are part of the ongoing improvements to the system.
In House Car Hire System Update
We anticipate starting data testing of the new system before the end of the month, which may lead to the customer release of the system by the end of February.
A Year-End Message
As this update is the last one of 2002, I thought I would take a little space to look back at the year, and look ahead to 2003.
In the last year we have had high level demonstrations for 10 railroads, and added three as users. This does not count the dozens of demonstrations we gave at the ASLRRA national meeting in Orlando, where we had our first booth.
We have also given demonstrations to three of the Class 1 railroads in the last year, and while they are not looking at ROCS for their own use, they are looking at alternatives to the other systems on the market to recommend to their Short Lines.
At the beginning of the year, the system was reliant on dial-up for data exchange, required the user to handle cars one at a time for movements and waybills, and had very few tools to deal with ETAs. As we come to the end of the year, the FTP data exchange is the standard method for communication, the Block Add and Block Move processes make handling groups of cars easy, and the system uses past move information to compute an estimated arrival date for a car. These incremental steps have been instrumental in making ROCS the most complete and easiest to use EDI solution available to Short Lines.
Where is ROCS going to go in the next year? The in-house car hire will be a big step, and it will be ready in the next few months. We will be adding EDI 419 and 421 messages as soon as a user needs them, and we will continue expanding the TRAINII system. Version 6 will be released in the spring, and Version 7 will be released in the fall.
We anticipate announcing additional new users very soon, and we will be starting up a users group soon. The users group will probably start as a Yahoo! Group with email discussions, and we will try to get everyone together at one of the meetings during the year.
Well, that’s all for now. Have a happy holiday, and best wishes in the new year.
Steven Friedland President |
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