THE WOODLANDS, Texas, Sept. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cedar AI, a provider of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology for rail planning and management, and Bourque Logistics, the leader in industrial shipper yard management systems for more than 30 years, announced this week their expanded collaboration to integrate their systems. The companies will also collaborate on sales and marketing, and have designated Joel Christensen to lead the effort.

Bourque Logistics' YardMaster® system is deployed at over 250 rail shipping facilities in North America for optimized management of railcar inventory, switching, inspection, loading, and unloading. 

CedarAI's ARMS™ (Automated Rail Management System) is a full-featured inventory and revenue platform for railroads. It serves as a single source of truth for a railroad's inventory and supports electronic data interchange across connecting railroads. Over 40 railroads have adopted the platform since it launched last year. Cedar will work with Bourque to build a data integration between Bourque's YardMaster® system and ARMS™. The combined project will provide rail shippers unprecedented visibility and service with their serving railroads.

By integrating the two systems, railroads and shippers will have enhanced synergies between their operations, allowing improved switch-planning efforts, fewer manual processes, and efficient electronic interaction.  The digitization of these processes ensures consistency of railyard operations if such manual know-how is lost through switch crew retirements or attrition.

Joel Christensen will lead the combined sales and marketing effort and serve as a liaison for both shippers and railroads accordingly. Joel will identify and coordinate Bourque shipper and Cedar AI railroad clients who can immediately benefit from the parties' collaboration.

"We welcome this exciting opportunity to closely partner our YardMaster® system with the ARMS™ platform," said Steve Bourque, president of Bourque Logistics. "Joel's years of experience in the railroad business and his four-year success with Bourque shipper systems makes him the perfect leader to steer our common effort to improve communication between shippers and their serving railroad partners." 

"We're very excited to partner with Bourque to provide railroads and shippers better visibility into each other's operations. This will allow for unprecedented operating synergy and further improve the ability for shortlines to deliver unparalleled customer service," said Daril Vilhena, co-CEO of Cedar AI.  

About Cedar AI
Cedar AI draws on extensive rail-industry experience and technology leaders from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to take on the most challenging problems in the freight rail industry.  The business leverages proprietary artificial-intelligence and machine-learning algorithms to provide railroads and rail shippers with tools to maximize efficiency, increase throughput, and improve safety. Cedar works everyday to build the set of next generation technology for railroads to compete with trucking and win market share.

Cedars flagship products include ARMS™, a next generation rail management system for railroads of every size, and Optiswitch™, the next generation yard planning system that makes planning a rail yard as easy as sorting mail. For more information and product offerings, visit cedarai.com

About Bourque Logistics
Used by over 120 rail shippers in North America, Bourque Logistics provides rail operations software for industrial shippers. Its automated rail logistics system has provided significant and ongoing value since 1989 with RAILTRAC^®, YardMaster^®, RateServer^®, and other tools that address all facets of rail shippers' needs and integrate seamlessly with their ERP systems. Its Shipper BI™ tool provides managers real time intelligence and trending to manage complex distribution and logistics.

Bourque Logistics' tools are redundant, cloud-based systems for rail and motor carrier shipment operations for loading and shipping, bill of lading submission, tracking and trace, freight costing and payment, fleet accounting, supply chain management, and customized reporting. Bourque's EDI data services connect shippers with their suppliers, customers, and carriers. They also provide professional services and support for rail fleet expediting and railcar maintenance management.

For more information, visit bourquelogistics.com or watch our company overview videos at youtube.com/bourquelogistics.

YardMaster^® is a registered trademark of Bourque Data Systems Inc.

ARMS™ is a registered trademark of CedarAI

Media Contacts:
Cedar AI
Steve Murray – 206.369.0305
David Moran – 404.692.9642
Bourque Logistics
Joel Christensen – 281.362.6726

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SOURCE Bourque Logistics