CBN Railway free essay sample

Among some of the challenges that CBN Railway Company faces, this paper will focus on a solution to overcome the inefficiency that exists with the maintenance of their equipment; namely their locomotives. CBN Railway Company is also considering leasing locomotives from various sources, unspecified. We will analyze some possible solutions and weigh the pros and cons of the possibility of leasing equipment. These two challenges facing this company are causing the quality of customer service to frail amidst an increase in business in the rail industry. Power by the Mile Leasing Arrangements Leasing of equipment for some companies can be advantageous. Depending on the lease terms, some firms can have great success with leasing the equipment they use due to the fact that the leasing company provides services and maintenance of the equipment they lease. This feature of a lease can be cost effective to the company leasing the equipment in a sense that the company does not have to maintain payroll of maintenance personnel or cost of maintenance in order to keep the said equipment in working order. We will write a custom essay sample on CBN Railway or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Maintenance of equipment is probably one of the most expensive aspects of any business. It takes a good maintenance system, which costs money, to efficiently and effectively maintain equipment. This aspect will be provided by the leasing company, given the fact that it is stated on the lease agreement. The downside to the agreement that CBN is looking to enter is that they will have to provide the actual labor on the locomotives (Coyle, Novack, Gibson, Bardi, 2011). This seems to be that CBN will pay for the lease and also will need to maintain a maintenance labor force to provide service to the locomotives as needed. This concept in itself deems this agreement to be unfavorable for CBN due to the fact that CBN will pay double; they will pay for service according to the lease agreement and also pay to maintain a team to do the actual labor on the locomotives. Although leasing can be a viable option in some cases, in this particular case, it is not. Possible Solutions Business that is oriented and dependent upon equipment performance must incorporate an effective and efficient maintenance system. The fact that CBN has schedules to maintain and customers to satisfy through adherence to these schedules tells the tale that CBN is in dire need of a good maintenance system. Through implementation of such a system, they may also need to revisit the quality of expertise and leadership within its labor force. Although they may go into a leasing agreement, a provision of the lease forces them to still hold on to a labor force for maintenance of their locomotives. Whether or not they choose to lease, this labor force must be elite in order to efficiently and effectively provide adequate service to their equipment. The possibility of hiring on a Maintenance Manager to oversee and run the maintenance department may be a viable possibility. Either way, the main deficiency of CBN seems to be the lack of expertise or direction of personnel that maintain their equipment, therefore, investing in maintenance leadership and expertise is a must for this company. Best Interest for CBN The main focus of any company is to be profitable. Profitability depends greatly on customer satisfaction and efficient/effective systems within the company. Although being in the situation that CBN is in, they must focus on what needs to be done in order to reverse the poor job servicing of its customers. This needs to be a â€Å"low lying fruit†, so to speak, where they can pick and solve the problems on a short run basis. Leasing their equipment may be a short term solution but in order to stay competitive, they need to have a long term plan and strategy of implementation of this plan at predetermined time intervals that provide milestones for the company to hit. This will give the company, as a whole, a sense of accomplishment in achieving the set milestones. CBN has been in business for a long time and has dealt with these problems for at least 20 years now (Coyle, Novack, Gibson, Bardi, 2011). They seem to have reached a monotonous plateau of acceptance in effectively dealing with their challenges therefore; they are not seeing desired results in ideas or methods of problem solving. Conclusion CBN must realize that they now operate in a different era and customer orientated systems must be implemented throughout every aspect of the business. This is especially true in this day in age where the public has easy access to various forms of information such as the internet. Customers now have many options available to gain information about most any and all services that they may need; this includes CBN’s customer base. The decisions and techniques of confronting and overcoming challenges must be made as a result of viable data and not estimations of how much money may be gained or lost. In order to achieve this data, CBN must implement effective systems that start from within the core of the company and organize everything else outward. This will ultimately grow CBN Rail Company into a strong and reliable, customer oriented competitor within the railroad transportation industry.