Greg Hrebek, Dir. of Engineering for New York Air Brake, Is In theCUBE During Splunk.conf 2014

From spreadsheet hell and complicated data relationships to speedy and actionable data, New York Air Brake Corp. details how it uses Splunk, Inc. products to solve its data management problems.  For starters, Splunk enables New York Air Brake to to save its customers $1 billion each year, primarily from fuel savings. Greg Hrebek, Director of Engineering for New York Air Brake, explained to theCUBE co-hosts John Furrier and Jeff Kelly that Splunk helps centralize collected data in order to present it to their Class 1 railroad customers in a format that’s not entirely different from speed dating.

New York Air Brake deals with a range of point persons for each organization it serves – mechanics, IT administrators, C-level executives – which are all siloed within their respective companies. “We’ve become an aggregator across the silos, and we can provide value to each of them,” Hrebek explained, noting the perks for executive teams.

According to Hrebek, Splunk has helped customers move into something of a speed dating type of relationship with their own data, where testing, creating models and analyzing data happens extremely fast. The locomotive data is analyzed in near real time, helping customers to do things like model the braking efficiency of each train car, predict equipment deterioration and offer proactive maintenance, ultimately helping to save fuel and reduce locomotive wear and tear.

See the full interview below.