Sasser Family Companies announced Chicago Freight Car Leasing (CFCL), a Sasser subsidiary, has won the 2021 ELFA Operations & Technology Excellence (O&TE) Award. This prestigious award is given annually by the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association to recognize organizations that are driving increased business value by successfully implementing a technology innovation project or through other improvements.
The 2021 O&TE award celebrates members of the CFCL and Sasser Information Technology teams, who partnered for two years beginning in early 2019 to create Rail360, a cloud-based system that addresses the limitations caused by using several operating systems to run CFCL's day-to-day business. Some of these systems were created several years ago while others were third-party systems implemented more recently. Rail360 streamlines CFCL's business by combining the functionality of multiple data sources into a single web-based application to provide a 360-degree view of a railcar.
"With the implementation of Rail360, CFCL is now able to serve our customers in real time by having all of the necessary information easily accessible within one cloud-based system," said Josh Chesser, Interim General Manager, CFCL.?"This single operating system us to be more efficient in our transactions, reducing our time to respond to our customers' needs, and providing accurate information on demand."
Specific benefits of Rail360 include the ability to quickly identify problematic cars and components, easily retrieve maintenance history on any car or repair, detect errors via the automated repair bill audit process, reduce maintenance costs utilizing high-quality data and analytical tools, and track key metrics with detailed reports.
"CFCL's Rail360 is an excellent representation of Sasser IT's overall goal of providing our business units with best-in-class products and services to deliver strategic value that enable growth opportunities and competitive advantage," said Chief Information Officer Brock Morrison.
CFCL will be recognized at the 2021 Operations & Technology LIVE! virtual event on Tuesday, Sept. 14, and in person in San Antonio, TX. at the ELFA 60th Annual Convention in October.