Studio Ab Ovo - Assil Al-Ibrahim - Senior Business Consultant at Ab Ovo - talking about multi resource planning with RCP

In this episode of Studio Ab Ovo, we talk with Assil Al-Ibrahim, Senior Business Consultant at Ab Ovo and Product Owner of RCP: Rail Capacity Planner.

RCP is Ab Ovo’s integrated planning solution for the rail market, built on top of the DELMIA Quintiq platform. It brings different types of planners together in one application: from rolling stock and employee planning to path, long-term, and short-term planning, as well as day-of-operation adjustments.

Assil explains how RCP helps planners create efficient plans while taking business rules, labor rules and operational constraints into account. Instead of relying on separate Excel sheets, disconnected applications, or individual planner experience, RCP creates one single point of truth for everyone involved.

In the conversation, we discuss how RCP supports rail companies with:

• Integrated planning across multiple resources
• Real-time feedback on business and labor rules
• Decision support when disruptions occur
• Automatic plan generation with solvers
• A single point of truth for all planners
• Flexible views and KPIs tailored to planner workflows
• Integration with existing systems, such as maintenance planning or disruption information
• Real-time impact analysis for delays, construction works and operational changes
• Modular implementation, allowing customers to start with one part of the solution
• Continuous improvement through customer feedback and “over-the-shoulder” sessions

Assil also explains how RCP evolved from custom-built rail planning applications into a feature-rich product that still allows flexibility and customization. Customers can implement the full solution or start with specific modules, such as employee planning, and expand later.

We also look at the future of RCP. Recent developments include integration with TAF TSI, the European framework for standardized data exchange between rail companies. Ab Ovo is also working on mobile functionality that allows employees, such as drivers or yard staff, to request holidays, share preferences, and potentially swap shifts, subject to labor rules and operational constraints.

This episode offers a clear look into how smart planning technology helps rail companies work more efficiently, respond faster to disruptions and give planners better tools to make reliable decisions.

If you work in rail, logistics, planning, operations, or digital transformation, this conversation gives valuable insight into the power of integrated planning.

Our mission is to improve the operational processes, to support the sustainability targets, and enhance the profitability of our customers with more efficient resource usage and streamlined processes.

We do this because we care.

We thrive in complexity. We embrace innovative, business-minded thinking and cherish devotion and passion. The perfect combination of talented colleagues, strong industry ties & eagerness to create eco-friendly solutions.

Always Hands-On

We take a no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to tackling challenges by rolling up our sleeves. We go the extra mile to deliver high quality results that provide the most value to our customers.

Always Together

We believe in better together – with our customers and with our teams. By bringing people, processes, and data together we create mutual benefits that have an impact on our customers and society. 

www.ab-ovo.com
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ab-ovo/

Transcript

Martijn 0:03

Hi, listeners and viewers, welcome at Studio Ab Ovo. Today we talk to Assil Al-Ibrahim, the product owner of RCP. He is senior business consultant at Ab Ovo. Welcome, Assil.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 0:16

Yeah, thank you.

Martijn 0:17

What does it mean to be the product owner of RCP?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 0:22

Yeah, it means that you're responsible for the product, uh, for the direction it goes, uh, for uh all new features, uh, and so you need to make a decision what to add to the product, and um yeah, and ultimately uh make the customers happy.

Martijn 0:40

That's that's a good goal to make the customers happy. Yes. And and uh yeah, we said RCP, of course. Uh and uh at up ovo it's uh a usual thing, but what uh what where does it stand for?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 0:52

Yes, it stands for uh rail capacity planner. So it's a solution that we have built specifically for rail market, um, and it's what we call an integrated planning solution.

Martijn 1:03

Okay. So it integrated as in?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 1:07

Uh as in uh that uh uh we try to integrate a lot of different planners to work in the same solution. So we uh uh the solution supports planners that plan uh different types of resources like uh um rolling stock resources, employee resources, paths, um, and also uh planners that do long-term planning, short-term planning, off day of operation. So it's like one big uh customer pool that uses the same application.

Martijn 1:38

And it's um it works on itself? Is it an isn't an application that works on itself or is it yeah, so uh it's an application that we have built uh within Ab Ovo uh on top of the Delmia Quintic platform.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 1:51

Okay, so yeah, so that's yeah, that's a big platform used worldwide, of course, and uh where Ab Ovo works. Yes, and uh the platform is uh yeah, it's great for our purposes. Uh so we can uh deliver the applications very quickly, we can uh build new uh new uh features very quickly uh by using all these amazing features of uh Delmia Quintiq. Okay, yeah. So it's it's it's used uh by different planners. And uh what are the and and so that it's used by different planners also gives it a lot of purpose within uh the the rail or or and logistics. What what kind of uh yeah, yeah. So the the idea of the software is to uh help the planners uh generate uh efficient plans uh and um um um taking care of all business rules and labor rules um so that uh the planner does not need to know all these labor rules and business rules. Yeah, the solution will uh give direct feedback uh whether all the rules are adhered.

Martijn 2:59

So it's it's like okay, you need something to put it very easily from A to B, and you need to plan the whole operation. Yes, when you were uh before this RCP, how did that work then?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 3:15

Yeah, it's uh it depends on the customers. So we um yeah, some of our customers uh uh had already planning uh systems. Uh um others planners other customers had uh like Excel files more or less. Um but you can imagine that planning resources, uh, if you have a pool of uh hundred planners, uh hundred employees, uh hundred uh locomotives, it's it gets very complicated um uh using Excel tools or or um other tools. So our solution um helps planners um uh make good decisions either by doing manual decisions or using our decision support uh solutions like uh that the system suggests to you. Uh if the if the driver reports sick, well the system will suggest uh this other driver is uh available and has actually the same uh um uh knowledge um to to replace this driver.

Martijn 4:14

Ah, okay. And so so it's also about the rules and regulation uh legislation. So is that other driver uh capable because he didn't work already for four days or five days? And so it's not just people or and and and time, but it's also all the rules exactly about yes.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 4:34

Uh so we uh uh we have already uh a lot of different labor rules inside of our solution that we take into account. Uh and uh when we start a project at the customer, we we do some kind of feed um uh uh how do you say that? Uh we we check whether there are gaps. Uh fit gap analysis. That's the word that I was searching for. Fit gap analysis. Fit gap analysis to see uh which labor rules they have, uh which uh labor rules are already part of our solution, and if there is a gap, we will add uh some uh labor rule into our solution.

Martijn 5:06

Is it nationwide or is that in Europe ?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 5:10

Uh it's even uh worldwide. We have also customers outside of Europe. Um yeah, so that's um and and these labor rules are taken into account when you do manual decision or when uh the system suggests uh uh um a solution, and also we have uh solvers that automatically generate plans. Okay. Um and also these plans are generated by taking into account all the business rules and labor rules.

Martijn 5:36

So um so when there is something happening, and there's an event in the old days, everybody had to do the new planning by hand or by Excel, but it didn't get it didn't give any feedback. Exactly.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 5:50

Exactly, and and also the quality of the solution depended on the seniority of the planner. Of course, yeah. Uh now uh of course that's also still a uh a factor, but the system tries to um yeah incorporate all this knowledge of the good planners into the system uh to assist the also the newer planners uh making good decisions.

Martijn 6:14

And and are there are any other advantages of the system of the RCP?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 6:19

Um yeah, so the system uh offers uh what we call a single point of truth. Uh so all the planners work in the same system. So if so if one planner has uh created um made a made a decision, then that decision um is right away made public to other planners so that we all all the planners work in the same um yeah, in the same single point of truth.

Martijn 6:47

Okay, so there no there doesn't need to be any phone calls anymore or emails or hey, exactly. Let we have an appointment, and then so you it's got it's gonna be efficient, it's gonna be more efficient.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 6:58

Definitely, definitely, and not anymore that uh uh one planner uses his own uh Excel sheet, the other planner uses uh other application, and uh those applications do not talk to each other.

Martijn 7:09

Okay, okay.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 7:10

Yeah.

Martijn 7:11

Yeah, how how does because we're talking now about then and now uh so you have your your manual or Excel and now we have the RCP. But where did it find its its origin? How how old is the the application?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 7:27

Or yeah, um I'm not sure how old exactly because it's one of the first applications uh of Ab Ovo. Um well I I need to say it differently. Uh so in the beginning, um Ab Ovo uh used to create applications for the uh rail industry from scratch. Okay. Like building, yeah, so coming to the customer uh what do you need? Yeah, what you need, conducting interviews and then building from scratch. And then we soon realized that the customers uh more and more want an off-the-shelf product uh that already is uh feature-rich, uh, but still allows to a lot of customization. Ah, okay. And that's when we decided to build uh RCP. Um, I don't know, maybe 15 years long or 20 years long. I'm I'm not sure.

Martijn 8:16

No, but it's a developing application.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 8:18

Yes, it's a developing application, indeed. Um, and uh indeed it uh it offers a lot of flexibility for the planners. Okay. Because one planner wants to see this screen uh and this information of that screen, uh, another uh planner wants to see those KPIs. Uh so um we offer the possibility to uh for every planner to create his screen in such a way that it will um work the best for his workflow.

Martijn 8:44

And how does that work? Is that is it also on premise that you work together with those planners to define everything?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 8:53

So, first of all, we already have like our set of uh what we call views. Uh this is the views that you uh standard using. Okay. Um but we also discuss with the planners what they want, and if they want uh additional KPIs uh on the screen or whatever, we explain how they can do it themselves. Uh so it's a customized solution. The planners themselves can can make changes to the views in such a way that they and you're looking over the shoulder with them. Yes, uh yes. So we we we actually uh like it's it's part of our continuous improvement of our uh software. Uh so we go regularly to our customers, we discuss uh with the planners how they want to work. Um, also like after using our application for several months of course uh that they will give us feedback. Some actions require um a lot of uh clicks. Um so could we maybe make it uh more user-friendly automated or maybe reduce the number of clicks uh to do the same action?

Martijn 9:57

Um so that's also an IT advantage, not a coding advantage, not just as an application the advantage for the planner, the in in the work path, yeah, but also from a coding view, coding point of view, programming point of view, it is efficiently uh being altered and specified for the specific customer.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 10:20

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we we discussed with the customers uh which systems they already have in place, uh and uh we built integration to those systems so that uh the planner can look at one screen and get information of uh different um different systems in one system. So, for example, if uh locomotive needs maintenance uh and there is already another system that uh uh has a um uh workshop maintenance plan for those locomotives, you you as a planner you don't need to log into that system, you can uh see that planning in our system uh right away. Okay, okay. By means of the uh integration with that system.

Martijn 11:01

Oh, that's perfect. That's perfect, yeah.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 11:04

And uh and also things like um if there are delays uh or train delays or maybe uh construction work on the tracks, we get that information from an external system, we show it to the planner, and the planner sees right away uh the impact of those construction works. So, how many trains are impacted and how should I reroute them to uh get around those uh construction works?

Martijn 11:29

It's not only internal factors, but also external factors that are taken in account. Yeah, like like things happening now, an event happening now, you can integrate in that in that system and then yeah, make a new plan or yeah, develop a new plan for the uh by the planner.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 11:46

Yeah, definitely. So uh uh when the planner creates a plan, um we show the quality of the plan by means of uh smileys. So if all the smileys are green, then basically the planner planner has created a great plan and basically has finished his work. Uh but since our application is uh real that gets information from external systems in real time. Okay, um yeah a lot of external factors disrupt the plan. Okay. And then you see red smileys appear in the application, and then the job of the planner is to react to them. Uh in some cases, uh by asking the system to give a new suggestion, or maybe uh asking the system to replan portion of the plan, or maybe make uh some small adjustments manually himself. And that's also real time. That's all also real time. Does that does that take long or is that well so what we what we do is we uh uh we generate plans in the long term for um for um like this would be the perfect plan uh if no external factors will come out. Okay, yeah. And then uh we have a short-term version of the plan, and then on day of operation, uh if something happens, then the planners only need to make changes to that particular. Ah, okay.

Martijn 13:06

So you don't have to take the whole plan and to recalculate, but you can just take, okay, this only takes effect on this part of the plan, so you just recalculate that part. Okay.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 13:16

And because of that, then recalculation doesn't take so that much time.

Martijn 13:21

Nice.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 13:21

And is is it like to to uh when somebody does not use RCP yet, does it take long to integrate it in a in a existing existing planning system or um well we are uh uh we've done a lot of different projects, and what we see is uh when you integrate with external systems, then uh we are mostly much faster in integrating on our side than in external system. Uh, because at the end you need to connect two systems together. So I would say integration with uh different systems that's not a limited factor for us. No. Um the limited factor is to uh uh to teach the employees to uh to work with our system, uh, because our system has uh so many features, you want to deliver the information in portions.

Martijn 14:11

Ah, okay. Um But is there is there a false learning curve?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 14:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh so we what we do is uh we we go there, we explain uh uh we go to the customer, of course, we explain uh what our system does, and we help the planners, so we have a training material to help the planners to um to learn our system. And our trainers are on uh yeah on promise, uh on premises and um yeah, guide the planners uh with with this new knowledge.

Martijn 14:43

Yeah, so when you want to actually switch to RCP or to up ovo, it doesn't it doesn't take like years or no lots of hours and lots of uh integration. It's it's a it's a whole package taken care of fast.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 14:57

Well you can you can imagine in the beginning we we first need to uh to have a discussion with the customer what they exactly need so that we will um we'll see whether they will use the whole application or maybe a sub uh portion of it. Oh, that's also possible. You can use okay. Yeah, exactly. Our our our system is modular, so if the planners want to use only uh um uh employee planning part of the system, we can uh deliver that as well.

Martijn 15:23

Ah, okay. So you don't have yeah, you don't need the whole box if you don't need it, you don't need to buy. So that's also efficient.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 15:29

That's also efficient, okay. Definitely, and also um replacing the existing systems we can also do it in stages. Um, so uh if they already have systems for um for doing uh locomotive planning uh but not yet employee planning, then we can first add employee planning um there. Okay, and maybe later they will decide, well, that part works so so nice, maybe let's uh let's extend the the scope of the system and replace maybe other systems.

Martijn 15:59

So that's a good thing for people of for logistic companies to look at in the future.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 16:05

Yeah.

Martijn 16:06

And how is how is uh RCP looking at the future? Is it is it is it still developing or or how yeah are there any developments that you can mention?

Assil Al-Ibrahim 16:15

Yeah, definitely. So uh yeah, we're we're constantly uh improving the RCP. So we uh we do like continuous improvement. Um so part of it is uh that we do these over-the-shoulder sessions uh that I've uh mentioned uh uh before, that we go there and discuss with the planners how uh how to improve the system. Uh but we also uh add new features uh all the all the time. So, for example, uh in the last uh year or two years, uh we have added uh integration with TUF TSI, uh which is uh maybe for people that don't know it, it's it's a like a set of EU regulations that standardize uh data exchange between rail companies. Okay. Uh so um like if you have rail operators, infra managers uh within the country or uh between the countries in of uh EU, um this set of regulations um sets um yeah guidelines how to communicate. Okay. And we have built uh that whole framework, Duff TSI framework, into our system. So now different companies uh in different parts of uh Europe can communicate with each other by using exactly the same format via our system, and also from one single point of truth. Exactly, exactly. So uh so that was a major development. Uh we are also working now on a mobile app, okay. Um adding uh constantly new features uh to it. Um so like uh that the employees um uh can request um uh holidays from the app or give like uh preferences. I want on that particular day want to uh work in the morning.

Martijn 18:01

Uh, so not just the planners, but you can now you can add data from outside from the employees itself, themselves.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 18:09

That's what we see uh what's uh happening that um uh the employees, like a driver, for example, or a yard employee, they want to have their own saying into the plan. Okay. So we have already uh added those features, but they want also to add um um like even more input to the customer to the planner. Okay. For example, if the planner decided to assign you a morning shift, but you as you as a driver want to exchange it to another uh with another employee, uh at this moment in time you need to do it via planner. Of course. But they want uh to uh to use a mobile app to swap the shifts uh directly between the drivers.

Martijn 18:52

Yeah, and because of the driver and the drivers are set to regulation, so you know that you have the right driver that you do not swap with somebody who cannot drive. Exactly.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 19:01

So so on the one hand, you want to give this possibility that they can swap the shifts uh directly between each other, but also build some kind of guide uh guidelines that uh well uh it should not be the case that after swapping this driver drives for seven days in a row without having rest days. Okay, so that's uh that's a lot of uh efficiency and flexibility for the future. And uh well, this is a great uh application, and it's it's uh it's uh really shows what uh up ovo is capable to do. Yeah, and uh that's uh that's also uh our goal.

Martijn 19:38

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you very much.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 19:40

Thank you too.

Martijn 19:41

Have a great uh yeah as a product owner to take care of this uh yeah, this kind of uh baby of application. Oh, definitely, yeah.

Assil Al-Ibrahim 19:49

That's how it feels, yeah. Have a great day. Thank you very much.