We combine deep industrial expertise with private equity insight to drive real results. We future-proof your business with concrete, tailored and impactful consulting services. The First and Last Mile: Where Car-Cycle Days Are Won Most of a railcar’s cycle time is spent in the first mile and last mile. For a Class I railroad, disciplined FMLM improvement is the fastest path to fewer car-cycle days — and every day is worth tens of millions. The railcar is the Class I network’s hardest-working asset — and often its most underused. A car spends far more of its life stationary than moving, and most of total car-cycle time is consumed in the first mile and last mile: in origin and destination yards, at customer gates, and in the loading, unloading, and switching windows around them. That is where dwell accumulates and car-cycle days are lost. It is also where they can be won back. The $65 Million per Car-Cycle Day is the capital and operating expense one Class I railroad saves for every single day it removes from car cycle. The majority of that cycle time sits in the first and last mile. Car-cycle days are not an Operational Abstraction, They are Capital Fewer days per cycle means the same volume moves with fewer cars, fewer leased cars and tracks, lower demurrage and switching charges, reduced foreign-car fees, and less repair dwell. At one Class I railroad, every single day removed from car cycle saves roughly $65 million in capital and operating expense. Because so much of the cycle is spent in FMLM, that is where those days — and those dollars — are most available. First Mile, Last Mile FMLM underperforms not for lack of effort but for lack of a shared, disciplined plan. Cars are placed for switching convenience rather than customer need; loading and unloading run without standard work; yards operate without a terminal clock; and the railroad, the switching vendor, and the customer pursue different, unaligned goals with little real-time visibility. The result is congestion, double-handling, reverse routing, and dwell that compounds car by car. Control Every Step of the Car Cycle The fix is a professional FMLM operating playbook that controls every step of the car cycle — car order, order fulfillment, car release, pipeline, and car placement. It starts by capturing each customer’s real requirements in a matrix — car type, number of spots, switch window, product queue, yard size — built jointly by the customer, the commercial team, and the local trainmaster. From there: standard work and a terminal clock in the yard, car supply matched to demand, a daily Pulse performance review, and a web-based dashboard that turns reaction into proactive action. Half the car cycle becomes a managed process instead of a daily improvisation. This is EFESO’s core terrain — operations strategy and performance improvement, delivered as Real Results, Together. The FMLM playbook has repeatedly turned dwell into cash: removing first-mile bottlenecks to unlock roughly $12 million in refinery margin and four additional carloads a day; cutting railcar lease cost by about $5 million through cycle-time and dwell management; and eliminating unnecessary dwell, cycle time, and reverse routing across chemical and energy fleets — each at roughly 4:1 ROI. Applied at Class I scale, the same discipline converts first-and-last-mile days into hundreds of millions in freed capital. About EFESO Management Consultants EFESO Management Consultants is a global leader in operations strategy and performance improvement. We work closely with clients across a broad range of industries to deliver real results tailored to their unique needs. Our end-to-end services integrate industrial AI, digital solutions, sustainability, and people development, transactions and turnaround, R&D and product profitability, cost and value engineering manufacturing, procurement, supply chain. We drive transformation through 1,500+ projects annually in over 75 countries. Powered by deep industry knowledge and a commitment to lasting impact, EFESO works closely with global brands, mid-sized companies, and private equity to build resilience and future-ready operations. Transportation, Logistics and Services Transportation, Logistics and Services Chemicals How we Help