News Releases
CrewVue News Release
Boulder, CO – January 1, 2008 – PS Technology, Inc. announced today that it will release the next version of their crew optimization application CrewVue to enhance their existing real-time crew management decision support tool leveraging the J2EE platform during the 3rd Quarter of 2008. With PS Technology’s extensive experience in the transportation industry, the solution has been architected to assist in optimizing the supply of crews throughout any rail network.
CrewVue provides the operations team up to the minute information about their entire crew network: supply versus demand, projected crew delay, current availability statistics, and pending manpower shortages. By increasing the planning window for the operations team, CrewVue will dramatically improve decision-making in a very time-sensitive, fast moving environment.
As a by-product of implementing PST’s Working Craft Service Suite , the level of information available for the men and women who work in a variety of variable scheduled environments dramatically improves. “By deploying the information already available inside the CrewVue system using relatively simple Java-based software, the railroads can provide a wealth of information to their employees, giving them better information about their scheduled start times. Most non railroad employees don’t struggle with knowing when to go to work each day; however, when you live your life connected to a phone, constantly checking your status, it becomes very difficult to regulate rest, soccer games with the kids, dates with the significant other, you name it,” says Julian Caldwell, Vice President Business Development. “We are excited that the Working Craft Service Suite provides more information that currently available on most railroads and will help all of the families who work in a very unpredictable environment.”
PS Technology’s CrewVue application provides a variety of planning modules in addition to the real-time crew information. More accurate manpower sizing, identification of qualification issues, better decision-making around the time off processes, improved crew utilization tools, and better service to the railroad’s customers are additional expected returns from this new launch.
iTrakForce News Release
Boulder, CO – Dec. 10, 2006 – PS Technology, Inc. announced today that it is has entered into an agreement with Union Pacific Railroad to create the workforce management solution iTrakForce for all of their non-operating personnel. With PS Technology’s extensive experience in the transportation industry, this solution will optimize the bulletin and assignment process, improve scheduling, and produce accurate pay to support all of Union Pacific’s diverse union agreements. iTrakForce will replace four legacy mainframe applications, providing the scheduling and pay solution for 32,000 employees, including maintenance of way, engineering, clerical and management personnel.
iTrakForce will be deployed in a modular fashion, allowing for easier integration within Union Pacific’s overall infrastructure. Reusable modules, such as Enterprise Messaging Services, Enhanced IVR technologies, Biometric Time reporting, Automated Overtime Calling, and J2ME Handheld deployment can be leveraged across multiple departments at Union Pacific.
iTrakForce’s design allows for easy enforcement of governing rules including union agreements, company policies, government regulations and manpower availability requirements. ”The system will allow our field workers to access real-time information about position availability and they will know their exact status at anytime. They will be able to access their profile from the Internet or from automated voice response. Overall, this should improve their quality of life and insure that they are taking advantage of the best opportunities,” says James Holder, General Director Engineering Systems & Training for Union Pacific.
“PS Technology’s broad knowledge of the transportation industry, and the railroad industry in particular, uniquely position us to provide a comprehensive, yet flexible solution to the problem of cost-effectively running labor operations in the very complex transportation environment,” comments Ashok Fichadia, President and CEO of PS Technology. “This venture demonstrates that we have responded to the changing technical environments of our clients while maintaining our industry expertise and thought leadership.”
“PST’s movement into this new market is a great opportunity for our development team to showcase their experience in this domain,” says Julian Caldwell, Vice President Business Development. “Our team has been solving the most complex business rules in the transportation industry for more than 20 years. This new iTrakForce product line is a great fit for PS Technology and positions us well to assist railroads of all sizes in helping them manage their overall labor costs which can run in the millions of dollars per month. Thousands of families depend upon PST to deliver an accurate paycheck each month, while our railroad clients expect PST to deliver the right crew, to the right train, at the right time thousands of times a day. It is exciting for us to provide that same reliable service to the non-operating teams at Union Pacific.”
Enterprise Messaging Service News Release
Boulder, CO – Dec. 1, 2006 –PS Technology, Inc. announced today that it is has entered into an agreement with Union Pacific Railroad to implement it’s Enterprise Messaging Service (EMS) across the UPRR organization, starting with the operating department. EMS allows for targeted message delivery regardless of an employee’s work schedule and is a key component to organizational communication and management of message receipt and acknowledgement. EMS will be integrated with TIBCO’s Portal solution and eTrust® SiteMinder®.
EMS is deployed as a service and can be easily integrated into the environment using existing network authentication tools. The solution can be utilized across an organization to distribute mass messages, or to target specific departments or employees with a variety of responses required including: yes/no, simple acknowledgement and free form comments. Pre-defined messages can be created for use with routine communications, in addition to the creation of messages from scratch.
EMS allows for customization by department or whatever level is appropriate to your organization. The simple user interface allows for the quick creation and review of messages and their status, for both messages creators and receivers.
“EMS addresses the challenge of ensuring that targeted employees receive the same information within the same timeframe. It is applicable to all industries and easily integrates within virtually any technical architecture,” says Julian Caldwell, VP Business Development for PST.
About PS Technology, Inc.
PS Technology has been developing workforce management solutions for the transportation industry for 20 years, working with all of the Class I railroad organizations in North America, short-line railroads and many commuter railroads. Our customers enjoy significant monetary savings attributed to the implementation of PS Technology’s workforce management solutions which bring consistent application of policies, labor agreements, reductions in union claims and increases in employee satisfaction.