Railroads, Collaboration, and Sustainable Industry

OnTrackNorthAmerica, where stakeholders redesign industrial systems and freight transportation to work for everyone

Collaboration Makes Progress Possible

Current Thinking

Supply
Chain
Optimization

Single-Company
Single Project/Issue
Short-Term Plan
Competition-Driven

New Thinking

Collaborative
Industrial
Optimization

Multi-Company
Whole System
Long-Term Plan
Collaboration-Driven

Our supply chains are unorganized. The truth is, neither marketplace competition nor vested interest lobbying leads to smart supply chains. For North America’s future prosperity, they must be re-conceived with a long-term vision.

For example, consider the efficiencies gained by logically positioning all components of strategic mineral supply chains, from mining supplies and mine location to processing, manufacturing, use, and recycling. That is Collaborative Industrial Optimization.

The problem is not a lack of intelligence—there are so many smart, committed people in industry, government, and the community. What we have been lacking are the effective methods for gathering that intelligence into smart policy, programs, and marketplace improvements.

OnTrackNorthAmerica engages stakeholders to advance the productivity of whole supply chains. To organize our stakeholders' collective intelligence, the online OTNA workspace utilizes MediaWiki (the same software that powers Wikipedia).

Check out the OTNA Workspace Here

Our foundational initiative catalyzes freight rail expansion to drive industrial productivity.

VitalRail

VitalRail is a private and public sector collaboration for growing rail carload service and sustainable industrial systems. The opportunity for railroad development to strengthen transportation efficiency and address environmental challenges has never been greater. We’ll all benefit!

How Do Stakeholders Interact Productively?

We have all attended conferences where knowledgeable speakers address rooms of professionals sitting quietly, while the meaningful conversations happen only in hallways and receptions. IntelliConferences® flip this dynamic—they’re large-scale, multi-stakeholder dialogues designed for action, not just talking.

This is how we gather human intelligence when progress can’t wait. Through structured rounds of questions, responses, and synthesis, stakeholders transform problems into actionable solutions. IntelliConferences run on the OTNA Workspace, where we capture and process the wealth of experience and insights our stakeholders bring.

Ready to move beyond traditional conferences? Explore our methods in the ‘Curriculum’ section, or join the OTNA collaborative Workspace where real progress happens.

OTNA Curriculum OTNA Workspace

“We aren’t advocating for a particular industry or transportation mode at the expense of another. All key industries must be efficient, profitable, and sustainable. We can think systemically about where we site new facilities and how we transport goods. This progress requires all stakeholders to recognize that our only path to sustainability is to move as much freight by rail as makes sense, in better coordination with trucks. Rebalancing our multimodal freight system and placing all industrial components in logical end-to-end supply chains will deliver cascading benefits to the broader economy and the environment.”

--Michael Sussman, CEO & President of OTNA

The Case for VitalRail by Michael Sussman