The meeting under the chairmanship of Ferdinand Schmidt (CEO Rail Cargo Austria) was focused on the reports of the study groups and special groups, their alignment for the next 2and 3 years and the managing in the face of economical crisis.
Thus Rainer Wilke reviewed the IT study group activities and his working groups GRU and NHM/DIUM. He underlined the support already given and prolonged in the future to TAF TSI deployment as manager of the cluster RU. He gave an outlook to the perspective of ISR applications from RAILDATA, UIC special group.
In addition to the activity report for the Quality study group H. Pfeiffer presented the UIC excellence board, new working body which will promote the application of the business excellence tools among the members.
The Steering Group Wagon User launched in 2008 is becoming more and more active. Eric Peetermand explained that the major topics in the future will be to support the updating of the GCU and to be active in each proposal linked with the maintenance of rolling stock, and their numbering.
H. Fikar explained that the Operations Study group will be involved in the security initiative with the platform COLPOFER and the train identity definition with the IT Study Group, in addition to his permanent activity to improve the interoperability.
C. Biteau informed about the next market place seminar which will take place in Istanbul next October.
The economical crisis impacts heavily on all the freight logistic supply chain.
Introduced by Oliver Sellnick, Director of the RU department, Mr H. Krüger-Lorenzen, Vice President Global Sales of Lufthansa Cargo gave an overview of the measures taken by his company. He underlined that the major challenge in adjusting resources was to strike the balance between the different interest groups and the crisis. The aimed solution is the one which will provide a better financial result as well as market position than the competition.
The participants welcomed the application of Videoconferencing presented by UIC and asked the freight forum working bodies to use this tool to improve their meetings regarding travel expenses.
Finally Dr Schneiderbauer from BOOZ & Co led the audience through the final results of the customer satisfaction survey. The participants agreed to be regularly informed about this issue in the future.