CIS410-1 Burlington Northern Railroad Electronics System
CIS410-01 Management of Information Systems
Case 1-1 Burlington Northern
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Annia Martinez
Burlington Northern: The ARES Decision
BN mission statement is to provide transportation services to its customers by offering a more reliable and faster service while reducing cost and increasing revenues by improving the utilization of its assets to stay ahead as the top company in the Railroads industry.
The Problem:
Burlington Northern Railroad is facing the question on whether the implementation of the ARES project will be beneficial and justifiable given its high cost. The ARES project is expected to cost $350 million, which includes three major cost categories, $80 million for the Control Center, another $80 million for the Data ink communication, and $200 million for the On-Board Equipment. ARES which stands for Automated Railroad Electronics System is an automated railroad control system that will help and change significantly how existing operations are planned and controlled …show more content…
With this solution the top management could analyze the benefits in reality before doing a whole implementation of the system which is riskier. Another solution could be to not do any implementation for now and wait and see how other railroad companies adapt to new emerging technologies, by doing this BN would take an adapter position which would still keep them competitive regarding technological development but with less risk. Adaptive companies use information technology at a level close to their competitors (Friedman, p.372). But this solution affects the customers that are demanding faster delivery necessary for the recent trend of JIT manufacturing who might end up switching to trucking companies, which ultimately affects BN because by the time they finally implement a system to improve the delivery to customers, they will have lost a lot of potential
Case 1-1 Burlington Northern
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Annia Martinez
Burlington Northern: The ARES Decision
BN mission statement is to provide transportation services to its customers by offering a more reliable and faster service while reducing cost and increasing revenues by improving the utilization of its assets to stay ahead as the top company in the Railroads industry.
The Problem:
Burlington Northern Railroad is facing the question on whether the implementation of the ARES project will be beneficial and justifiable given its high cost. The ARES project is expected to cost $350 million, which includes three major cost categories, $80 million for the Control Center, another $80 million for the Data ink communication, and $200 million for the On-Board Equipment. ARES which stands for Automated Railroad Electronics System is an automated railroad control system that will help and change significantly how existing operations are planned and controlled …show more content…
With this solution the top management could analyze the benefits in reality before doing a whole implementation of the system which is riskier. Another solution could be to not do any implementation for now and wait and see how other railroad companies adapt to new emerging technologies, by doing this BN would take an adapter position which would still keep them competitive regarding technological development but with less risk. Adaptive companies use information technology at a level close to their competitors (Friedman, p.372). But this solution affects the customers that are demanding faster delivery necessary for the recent trend of JIT manufacturing who might end up switching to trucking companies, which ultimately affects BN because by the time they finally implement a system to improve the delivery to customers, they will have lost a lot of potential