Bourque Logistics, the leader in North American railcar shipping systems for over 30 years, announced two related efforts which will enhance the accuracy and availability of tankcar loading calculations.
First, it has competed an exclusive license of the volume correction (VCF) source code from Quartz Precision Software LLC. Quartz's VCF process adheres to standards published by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and, for many years, has served as a vital resource to chemical and refinery shippers. Bourque will work with Quartz to assure continued adherence to the latest API requirements. Bourque will also migrate the VCF code base to the latest .Net architecture for cloud-based availability to rail shippers.
Second, Bourque will package the VCF technology with its extensive tankcar outage table database. The availability and accuracy of outage tables is critical to a safe and optimized tankcar loading process for liquid and gaseous products. Bourque provides its YardMaster® clients electronic access to outage tables to reduce manual efforts which delay and make inaccurate tankcar loading operations.
Further, Bourque will work closely with its partner, Industrial Networks, LLC (INet) to provide the enhanced VCF process directly into the field, via INet's YardMaster Mobile® mobile, AEI-scanning tablets. Field access to the improved VCF technology will allow operators continued ability to perform VCF calculations directly on loading racks saving much time and effort.
"Our recent cloud-based services provide a streamlined method to roll out Bourque's evolving technology to our customers," said Steve Bourque, president of Bourque Logistics. "In this particular example, we will leverage the cloud plus the existing conduit of INet's mobile, AEI-scanning tablets used by our refining and chemical clients to provide this upgraded tankcar loading functionality."
Used by over 250 industrial railyards in North America, Bourque Logistics' YardMaster® is a robust rail operations software that fully automates rail shipping operations, such as railcar request and release, switching, onsite inventory, order scheduling and rack assignment, railcar inspection, and BOL transmission. In addition, YardMaster® provides load and offload optimization by performing load bay verification, advanced outage, and volume correction calculations.
