TRAC Intermodal's Journey to Data, Analytics, Cloud

The IT team at this provider of chassis for metal shipping containers has transformed its data infrastructure from spreadsheets and reports to a Hadoop data lake and dashboards. When you were eating those chips and guacamole in front of your flat screen TV during the recent World Cup matches, you probably weren't thinking about how that television and the avocados for that dip arrived on US shores in shipping containers. While not many people spend a lot of time thinking about shipping containers and the equipment used to move them around, those containers and that equipment play a large role in enabling the US and global supply chain and delivering many of the goods we buy and consume on a daily basis. The innovation of standard-sized or "intermodal" shipping containers dates back at least a half century, so it may be no surprise that a business that supplies the equipment needed for moving individual shipping containers operates with a traditional culture -- one that may not easily welcome digital transformation and its benefits.