Case Study: TrinityRail achieves a sense-and-respond, highly responsive supply chain and 12-day inventory reduction with Kinaxis RapidResponse

Enabling a sense and respond supply chain

TrinityRail, part of Trinity Industries, is a major provider of railcar manufacturing, leasing and services that operates in a build-to-order environment with highly configurable products, long product lifecycles and a two- to three-year backlog. Planning was manual, error-prone and Excel-driven—requiring 15+ manual data transfers to produce reports—and accurate forecasting proved near impossible amid frequent schedule changes, extensive material impacts and independent work groups.

TrinityRail replaced forecasting with a “sense and respond” approach using Kinaxis RapidResponse as a central planning hub, creating a single harmonized data set and collaborative planning environment. The change shortened sales projection and execution from days or weeks to hours, virtually eliminated Excel reliance, cut days of inventory on hand by 12 days, produced nine supplier-planning models and a supplier portal (with VMI underway), and sped financial impact analysis to under three minutes while allowing headcount reductions without sacrificing on-time delivery.

TrinityRail

Mike Hegedus

Vice President Supply Chain Management