The Hindu Business Line : Concor begins benchmarking across centres

Since no other organisation in the country operates on the lines of Concor, the company is defining its best practice benchmarks internally across various centres. It may eventually hire an external consultant for the purpose.

"We recently started an internal assessment scheme, wherein we study the best practices within various activities of the organisation across centres. We have sought data on different parameters from various centres. The best practice being followed in a certain activity in any of the centres would be set up as the benchmark for other sectors," the Concor Managing Director, Mr Rakesh Mehrotra, told Business Line.

The parameters being studied include equipment deployed per wagon, wagon movement per hour and staff used for moving a wagon for a certain distance.

For studying wagon utilisation, parameters such as twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) moved per rake per trip, trips per month and transit time are being studied.

"In the operations arena, we are considering TEUs per hectare, cost per TEU handled and downtime," said Mr Mehrotra. The exercise is likely to be completed in the next two months, he said, adding that the company may hire an external consultant later

In its effort to turn customer-friendly, Concor has also started working towards speeding up the claims settlement process. "Through the customer feedback process we started recently, a lot of customers said the claims resettlement process takes a long time. We are now attending to it," said Mr Mehrotra.

On how the company is geared up for competition, in the backdrop of the Government's move to open up containerised rail operations for private operators, Mr Mehrotra said, "We compete with roads haulage at present. And it would be about a year or two before private parties start their full operations. But, we are anyway geared up. Our wagon fleet is in a comfortable position," he said.

For 2004-05, Concor recorded a turnover of Rs 1,996.96 crore with a net profit of Rs 439.58 crore.

The company is in the process of setting up container berths at the ports of Hazira, Ennore and Chennai and firming up its container procurement plans.

Concor has acquired 1,700 high-speed wagons during the last 13 months and it expects delivery of about 1,400 wagons this year (the orders for which were placed earlier).

As for the current fiscal, the company is reviewing its requirements.

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