E-commerce streamlines ethanol transportation

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Matt Soberg November 14, 2011

Norfolk Southern Corp. reports that a new transload system decreased the time of operations from an average of 90 minutes to just 30 minutes in its first year of use at its Alexandria, Va., facility.

Norfolk Southern streamlined its ethanol supply chain in the East with a virtual inventory database system that includes information accessible in real-time for customers, who include 22 ethanol plants producing 2.16 billion gallons of ethanol annually.

First implemented in Oct. 2010, the system comingles ethanol shipments from numerous customers, thereby expediting transloading operations by enabling trucks to access ethanol from any rail car. “The management and delivery system can cut in the half the time it takes to transload shipments at Thoroughbred Bulk Transfer facilities,” according to Norfolk Southern.

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