|
|
|
Short Line Data Systems Inc. – ROCS Update November 2003
Website: www.sdsrocs.com
Greetings –
Well, it has been another busy month, even though most of the results will not be evident on the surface. At the M&E, we started and finished the ISS certification process for the Maine Eastern RR and at the Housatonic, we have been working on the settlement system. Other projects have included a whole bunch of reliability upgrades and an expansion of the hazmat section on outbound bills for radioactive shipments.
ISS Certification
As I mentioned in the paragraph above, the ISS certification process for the Maine Eastern was completed last month. Usually the testing takes place over a 30-60 day period; we started on October 7th, and finished on the 24th (I am told that this was one of the fastest, if not the fastest certification ever). This was a team effort, and we could not have completed everything in time without the help of Railinc and our certification partners, NS and CSXT. If anyone is considering becoming an ISS railroad, please give us a call and we’ll be happy to relate our experiences, and give you some assistance with what is a complicated process.
Rating Database
One of the things that makes SDS different than the other car management software companies is our ability to customize our product to our customer’s specific situation, and do it for the price quoted. One of our customers, the Housatonic Railroad, had a unique situation with their settlement reporting: Their operations take place in one part of Connecticut, while they do their financial work in a different office at the other end of the state. What they needed was a separate rating database that took data from the regular ROCS system, and performed the CSXT junction settlement functions. We have created this database, and HRRC is in the process of testing it. We are also working with them to add any features to the system that they require. While the requirements were part of the initial quote, the size of the added system was beyond the original scope. However, we stuck with our quoted price, and are continuing to develop the rating database. When SDS was founded, it was done with the idea that the smaller railroads needed a reasonably priced system that met their needs, whatever they might be. We are meeting that goal today, and intend to keep on doing it for any railroad, no matter what their size.
Reliability Upgrades
One of the realities of the software business is that no matter how much work you put into the system, you are never really “done”. Standards change, working conditions change, and something that you thought worked well one day might not be so great the next. We spend a good portion of our working time each month trying to improve the reliability of the system, and remove any bugs that might have cropped up. A good example of this is the added data needed for radioactive hazmat shipments. The data segments are used only for these type of shipments, and for all previous ROCS users, there has been no need for these segments. Until we added the MERR. They are shipping parts of the decommissioned Maine Yankee nuclear reactor out, and needless to say, some of the shipments are “hot”. So in go the segments, and with it everyone benefits from the improvements to the system. The truly unfortunate part of all of these changes is that most of them are not visible to the naked eye, so the true breadth of the work done really can’t be seen.
Well, that’s about all that is going on at the moment. We will have a booth at the CSX Short Line meeting in December, and I believe that we will be announcing the addition of a couple of new users in the immediate future.
Have a safe month.
Steven Friedland President
|
Send mail to
webmaster@sdsrocs.com with
questions or comments about this web site.
|