24 August 2010

Canadian Pacific to Unveil New Operational Structure, Job Cuts

Ed Harris - Chief Operations Officer.

Calgary Alberta - Canadian Pacific Ltd., Canada's second-largest railway company, plans to announce a major reorganization of its operations in the next two weeks, as part of its ongoing focus to improve efficiency and customer service, according to an internal document obtained by Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal reports.
 
Calgary-based CPR is restructuring its 11 regions into 6 for operations and engineering to "address a current gap" in operations and "facilitate the delegation of accountability and authority" to the regional level to "ensure efficient train operations" and "respond quickly to local operating issues," says Ed Harris, chief operations officer, in his August Operations Update, Special Edition.
 
Harris, a former U.S. marine, joined CPR in April, three years after retiring from rival Canadian National Railway Co. (CN) where he was CN's executive vice president of operations. Montreal-based CN is the industry leader in terms of efficiency, well known for running a low-cost, high-profit, railroad.
 
A company spokesman confirmed the document's statements. CPR began a top-down operational review in 2008, before the onset of the recession, after detecting a drop in traffic, says CPR spokesman Mike LoVecchio.
 
"We're peeling back the onion and this is another layer," he says.
 
The 6 regions are British Columbia, Alberta/Saskatchewan, Manitoba/Northern Ontario, Southern Ontario/Quebec, U.S. West, and U.S. East. General managers will be named for each region the week of 30 Aug 2010, Harris says in the document.
 
The service area manager positions will be "collapsed" into current manager operations positions and be identified as "superintendent" positions across operations.
 
Job cuts are likely. According to the document, there is "no quota" for staff reduction, but positions will be eliminated.
 
"We do not know the number of positions that will be affected," it says.
 
It also says there will be no voluntary packages, and efforts will be made to redeploy individuals.
 
CP intends to complete its organizational realignment by the end of October.