Process Innovation: Improving the Railroad Sector for Competitiveness

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to propose and discover the relationship between a set of variables of a conceptual model for the railroad industry, based on process innovation variables (PIV), which allows the managers of these companies, recognize, assess, decide and implement actions that improve the competitiveness(C) in the sector. The selection of the independent variables was performed through review of the literature discovering initially 16, and identifying 4 as independent variables. They were weighted in order of importance, applying Saaty's Theorem to 10 railroad specialists, resulting: Knowledge Management (KM), Logistics (LG); Information and Communication Technologies (ICT); Quality of Service (QoS). We applied 44 questionnaires of 4 dimensions, 20 indicators, 60 regeants to different railroad specialist managers: 14 from FERROMEX (FMX); 10 from FERROSUR (FSR); 10 from FERROVALLE (FVLL) and 10 from KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN of MEXICO (KCSM). The design of data collection instrument involved as a test pilot questionnaire to 10specialist managers of railroads and using the method of the 2 Halves to assure the reliability, with Pearson correlation on r = 0.9905 for adjustment. Using simple linear regression were obtained the variables that drive the PIV for C in railroad sector. These were: KM (65.6%), QoS (30%), ICT (47.3%) and LG (32%). Finally it is concluded, that in the railroad industry, managers should focus their efforts mainly to the independent variable: knowledge management, which is described with the organizational dimension and characterized by Talent Management, Use and Implementation, Creation and Acquisition, Storage, Sharing and Transfer as indicators to initially raise the competitiveness of the sector.