Commitment to Customers and Suppliers
We work hard to create value for our customers. From consistently transporting products safely and on time, to developing new products that serve our clients’ needs, our customer satisfaction scores have reached record levels. Our customers appreciate our innovative processes, employee responsiveness, problem-solving skills and strong rail network.
Customer Satisfaction
To measure the value Union Pacific provides to customers, we send a 35-question survey to more than 100 customers each month. Key performance indicators include on-time delivery, service consistency, pricing, total transit time, problem resolution and information accuracy. Focusing on customer value has been key to improving our customer satisfaction results, which were at an an all-time best in 2011.
Customer Service
We pride ourselves on the service we provide to customers. At Union Pacific, we offer comprehensive freight transportation solutions. We help customers take advantage of the environmental benefit and lower cost of shipping by rail. We can handle nearly every type of shipment, whether or not a facility is located alongside rail. We use our extensive network to coordinate shipments with other railroads and provide over-the-road transportation across North America and beyond. That is why, year after year, our customers recognize our responsiveness, process standardization, problem solving and consistent transportation service performance.
Innovating to Serve Our Customers
Union Pacific wants to be seen as a valued resource and partner to our customers. That’s why we’re always looking for new transportation solutions that will allow us to serve them even better. Our solutions include:
- AutoFlex: 90-foot-long convertible, multilevel rail cars that can be easily transformed from two to three decks based on the customer’s vehicle shipment needs. Union Pacific holds 15 patents related to the design and process that resulted in its development by more than 200 employees from De Soto, Mo.
- Plant-to-Port: A first-of-its-kind transportation and transload service that delivers door-to-door supply chain logistics for agricultural clients, beginning with distillers dried grains and eventually serving bulk grain and processed grain products.
- Pipeline Express: Union Pacific’s Pipeline Express serves the oil and gas steel pipeline industry with truck-competitive transit times, a rail network that aligns well geographically with new pipeline projects – particularly related to shale-related drilling – and site selection support for customers that is unmatched in the industry.
Improving Customers' Supply Chain
By evaluating their supply chains, customers find they can reduce their overall environmental footprints by shifting freight from trucks to rail. Union Pacific customers are able to leverage the environmental benefits of shipping by rail to haul their products. According to the EPA, trains are three times cleaner than trucks in terms of emissions. If just 10 percent of the long-haul freight currently moved on highways was diverted to rail, annual fuel savings would exceed 1 billion gallons.
New Mexico Rail Facility Will Serve Growing Intermodal Needs
Intermodal transportation is one of Union Pacific’s top growth areas. As more freight shifts from highway to rail or comes off ocean vessels and travels inland, we expect traffic on our western lines to increase significantly in the coming years. Anticipating our customers’ needs, we began construction on an all-new rail and fueling facility just outside Santa Teresa, N.M., in August 2011.
Union Pacific is investing $400 million toward development of the 2,200-acre site that is expected to add $500 million to the New Mexico economy. Set along the historic railroad corridor known as the Sunset Route, this facility is projected to bring 3,000 jobs to the area during construction from 2011 to 2015, and 600 permanent jobs in the Santa Teresa area upon completion. It also gives southern New Mexico an inland port that will serve as a strategic focal point for goods movement.
Once complete, the facility will be 11.5 miles long and 1 mile wide, and include 200 miles of railroad track and 26 buildings for yard operations. Previous Union Pacific projects like this one have stimulated millions of square feet of additional industrial-related development within five to 10 miles of the rail site including warehouses, distribution and storage facilities.
Autos Team Launches Green Ramp Initiative
Union Pacific’s autos team launched its Green Ramp Initiative to reduce the railroad’s environmental footprint, putting emphasis on progressing a series of projects that benefit the environment as well as contribute to safety and operational efficiencies:
- Geographical Baying. Through this process, automobiles are unloaded from trains and parked, or “bayed,” at facilities in a way that minimizes their dwell time in terminals and the amount of shuttling trucking companies must do to identify and pick up loads.
- Electric Vehicle Charging Stations. Fifteen auto facilities are outfitted with 220-volt charging stations to support electric vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, as they are introduced into the marketplace. The autos team is exploring the benefits of electric shuttle vans for employees and customers at the facilities.
- Recycling. Recycling programs are being added in locations such as the Mira Loma and Benicia, Calif., ramps.
- Lighting Tower Upgrades. A $2.5 million effort has upgraded auto facilities with more efficient lights. The project, which calls for an additional $3.5 million in future investments, will result in more towers overall to increase safety and security at auto ramps. New metal-halide lamps provide more targeted light, more closely replicate natural light and better illuminate the facilities. The overall increase in towers will result in more energy use; however, in a one-to-one comparison the new towers are more energy efficient than their predecessors.
Fostering Supplier Diversity
For 30 years, Union Pacific has demonstrated our commitment to nationally support and embrace supplier diversity. Our supplier diversity program was the first among the largest U.S. railroads and focuses on spend, utilization and professional development.
From $10 million in our first year to more than $370 million through 2011, we are expanding opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses to be successful. Our program permeates the entire organization, impacting purchases of fuel, engineering services, railroad maintenance and construction, rolling stock maintenance, and technology.
2011 Supplier Diversity Facts and Figures
- Union Pacific purchased goods or services from diverse suppliers in 39 states, including all 23 in which we operate.
- Our spending with diverse suppliers grew approximately 4 percent each year from 2007 to 2011.
- We directly purchased goods or services from more than 400 diverse businesses.
- Approximately 10 percent of Union Pacific’s critical and prime suppliers reported indirectly purchasing goods or services with diverse suppliers, demonstrating their support of our supplier diversity initiative.
Memberships, Boards and Committees
- National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC)
- NMSDC Transportation Group
- Midwest Minority Supplier Development Council, board and advisory member
- Chicago Minority Supplier Development Council
- Dallas Fort-Worth Supplier Development Council
- Houston Supplier Development Council
- Women’s Business Enterprise National Council
