In the Networked World, we celebrate the webpreneur who can humble higher status players by acting more nimbly, creatively, profitably; but we’d be foolish not to respect to the big games played by big players, because they have so much potential to move money and jobs into (or out of) an economy.
Besides which, there’s nothing else in the world like playing with trains. Big trains.
Naturally I was interested when my cousin, Kevin, an engineer with GE in Florida, told me about a train project he’s working on there as part of the company’s Ecomagination initiative.
Kevin’s project is called Trip Optimizer. It’s essentially a cruise control system for trains. The system takes into account the length and weight of the train, the power and performance characteristics of the locomotives on the train, and the grade and curvature characteristics of the terrain to come up with an optimal fuel consumption plan that does not affect arrival times.
“Put simply,” stated Dr. Ed Hall, GE’s General Manager for Engine Engineering (now THAT’s a heck of an engineer!) in Congressional testimony last May, “Trip Optimizer uses GPS and forward-looking terrain mapping to plan a locomotive’s trip, and it develops a recipe to minimize fuel usage and meet speed limits along the way. The ‘recipe’ is constantly updated and gives the onboard crew a tool to manage the journey in a completely novel way, by allowing explicit trades between journey completion time and the fuel used, as opposed to operating at or near the speed limit all the time.”
The primary objective for Trip Optimizer is fuel savings (which equals cost savings). A secondary benefit is emissions reduction (less fuel burned = less CO2 and other byproducts emitted). GE estimates that it can save an average of 10% of a train’s fuel costs, which amounts to 32,000 gallons of fuel saved per large (1K ton) locomotive per year. The pilot program launches in the next 60 days with a major North American railway company.
Trip Optimizer is one of a series of Ecomagination products being developed by GE that point the way toward more sustainable models of resource consumption. Others include composite fiber jet engine fans, desalination filters for drinking water, non-silicon solar panels, home energy management systems and hybrid train engines that store rather than release the intense heat generated by locomotive brakes.
Trip Optimizer represents strong business improvisation by GE in a number of different ways:
1) The meta communication is powerful and resonant. Hey, it’s TRAINS, okay? Chattanooga Choo-Choos! Thomas the Tank Engine, Casey Jr., John Henry vs. the Inky Poo, Mag-Levs and Bullet Trains! To Alfred Hitchcock trains meant sex and danger. To Walt Disney, freedom and adventure. To a generation of Chinese laborers, the laying of the big railroad routes meant opportunity and hardship in America. To boxcar-hopping hobos in the Great Depression of the 1930s, trains were a lifeline, the difference between eating and starving. By helping trains become more fuel efficient, GE is participating a much bigger story than the one told on a balance sheet for a new product.
2) The product joins two familiar ideas to create a new one. It is easy to fall into a trap of thinking we have to invent something new, when often the more productive move is to re-contextualize what is old and familiar. By combining the familiar idea — the cruise control — with a familiar character and environment — the train engineer sitting in the engine car — GE has not only created a new product, but a new job description and environment for train engineers that will call on Gen-Why skills honed on videogames and computers.
3) Themes are explored. GE’s Ecomagination initiative is a brand, and a brand as you’ll know when you read my book, is an ongoing improvised performance in the marketplace. For any brand — just as any other improvised performance — to hold the audience’s interest and earn its applau$e, it needs to establish and explore themes. By strongly exploring the Ecomagination themes of energy conservation and creative engineering, the Trip Optimizer team contributes a powerful scene to its brand’s performance in the marketplace.
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Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, CO2, Disney, Ecomagination, Environment, Fuel Consumption, Game, GE, Innovation, Locomotive, Theme, Train, Trip Optimizer