As Dagny reflected on the collapse of the bridge, she was met by her Signalling Chief David Wheeler. Dagney never quite understood where David was coming from but through the years many things had changed. She considered the signaling system as incidental to the workings of the railroad. “Engines and Steel” were always her focus and when David would come in she was always happy that his budgets reflected a desire to impact operating efficiency and revenues from alternate uses. She had never considered the rail as a good signaling conduit, but she knew that one of the reasons Francisco D’Anconia would only listen with half an ear was because the phone company was competing with her for copper.
Wheeler had implemented a strategy at Taggart.to maximize the use of the bridge across the Mississippi River by keeping the time precise on where all trains were on the network. It was connected to a board that he kept trying to interest Dagny to visit. He called the Signaling Operations Center.
Dagny was not particularly interested in talking to him, and she almost feel into a rage when he told her the bridge was collapse was an opportunity.
He explained that he had been noticing that most companies understood little of their distribution and he has been tracking the freight on the system and noticed that about 2/3 of the traffic actually went across two times, often 3 or more.
He said companies centralize when they distribute. “All problems can be solved by another level of indirection. He suggested a warehousing and distribution service that could be offered in addition to the railroad services. He even came up with a pricing model over and above the transport that would save the customers money if they were tracking the cost of managing their inventory. He also showed how a few temporary ferries could manage the traffic across the river “for the time being”,
Dagny hated the idea , but she had to admit that she could think of nothing else to do while the bridge was repaired.
Objectively, David Wheeler was making sense. She felt a new chapter was being written in her life.
Note: Apologies to the Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged fans. It seemed like an appropriate way to develop a metaphor for M2M and Smart Grid.
For those who want to know the real David Wheeler start here.