The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association awarded Chicago Freight Car Leasing (CFCL), a Sasser family company, the 2021 Operations and Technology Excellence Award. The company’s award-winning project will be showcased during ELFA’s Operations and Technology Conference LIVE! on Sept. 14.

“For nearly two decades, ELFA’s Operations and Technology Excellence Award has led the way in recognizing the innovative use of technology in equipment finance,” Ralph Petta, president and CEO of the ELFA, said. “Today, the spirit of this award is more important than ever, as our industry competes in a rapidly changing world. We are honored to recognize CFCL as this year’s winner and we congratulate all our award applicants for their noteworthy achievements.”

The CFCL business and Sasser technology teams are being recognized for creating and developing Rail360, a proprietary, scalable, web-based application that provides a 360-degree view of the company’s fleet of railcars. The new solution is an integrated information system that combines CFCL customer and fleet data, making information readily available, simplifying its management and eliminating the need for CFCL personnel to access multiple disparate systems.

The solution connects accounting, asset management and customer management software to the new operations application. Rail360 increases both the effectiveness and efficiency of fleet management by allowing the CFCL team to see mileage, repairs, assets, leases, customers and real-time equipment tracking data in one place. CFCL’s repair shop portal and Sasser’s open API extend Rail360, facilitating seamless and expedient data exchange and enabling direct integrations with customer systems. Rail360 exemplifies technology that supports a complex business process across organizational boundaries, enhances customers’ experience and drives value through improved information.

“We are pleased to highlight the achievements of the 2021 Operations and Technology Excellence Award winner,” Tawnya Stone, vice president of strategic technology at GreatAmerica Financial Services and subcommittee chair for the award, said. “CFCL deserves recognition for their winning solution that enhanced their efficiency, customer service and employee productivity. We look forward to hearing their story at ELFA’s Operations and Technology Conference LIVE! in September.”