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program or government funding, Ellis said. “Our industry when we’re moving 4,000-plus barges on our network,” will not be able to see any real meaningful [technological] Ellis said. “How we move those barges, how we build those changes until they become more economically feasible.” tows, how we run our intervals are super important to us.” “So, until the cost versus bene? t for the operators like Last year, ACBL kicked off a program called MOST us who have to make investments balances, we probably (Marine Operating System Transformation), which com- won’t see the industry move as fast as customers probably bines a number of software products the company uses to want us to, or our government would want us to, Ellis said. improve operational ef? ciency as well as the experience “The cost of the technology is still much higher than any- and interface for its customers.

one is willing to pay for it.” “We are investing in some really interesting technology to help us more ef? ciently run our business, and to be

The power of AI able to turn our barges faster, to be able to provide a bet-

As it strives to maximize ef? ciency, ACBL is making use ter customer experience from beginning to end on where of advanced technology such as computer modeling and your barges are, what the status is,” Ellis said. “That tech- arti? cial intelligence (AI) to best map out how it operates. nology is a huge piece of what we do, and we’re very ex- “There are parts of our business that are very complicated, cited about it.” www.marinelink.com MN 15|

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