CapEx360® National Railway Case Study
CN Rail & CapEx360®
Canadian National Railway Strengthens Capital Governance with CapEx360®
Executive Summary
Canadian National Railway (CN), the only transcontinental railway network in North America and a critical transportation backbone moving approximately $250 billion worth of goods annually, required a more scalable and structured approach to managing its capital expenditure request process.
The organization was processing more than 700 CapEx requests annually, with investment activity continuing to grow across the network. The existing process relied on a combination of manual workflows and a legacy internally developed system built on Lotus Notes and integrated with SAP. Over time, the system became increasingly difficult to maintain and lacked the scalability and governance capabilities required to support CN’s evolving capital management environment.
By implementing CapEx360®, CN introduced a structured platform to manage capital requests, business cases, and approval workflows within a unified system. The deployment improved approval efficiency, strengthened visibility and transparency across capital investments, and established a scalable framework capable of supporting increasing investment activity across the organization.
Challenge
Managing capital investment across a continental rail network requires rigorous governance, consistent approval processes, and visibility across hundreds of projects. CN’s existing environment created several operational challenges.
Key Pain Points
Growing Capital Request Volume
More than 700 capital requests were submitted annually, with demand continuing to increase as infrastructure investment expanded.
Manual Workflows and Legacy Systems
Capital requests were managed through a combination of manual processes and an internally developed Lotus Notes application, making the system difficult to maintain and scale.
Limited visibility into investment activity
Stakeholders had limited transparency into request status, approval history, and overall capital portfolio activity.
Historical data accessibility challenges
Years of historical capital request data needed to be preserved and migrated into a modern environment for ongoing reference and reporting.
ERP integration requirements
The capital request process needed to remain aligned with CN’s SAP financial environment.
CN required a capital management platform capable of handling enterprise-scale request volumes while maintaining integration with existing financial systems and supporting long-term governance requirements.
Solution
Caprivi Solutions implemented CapEx360® to modernize CN’s capital request and approval process.
The platform provided a centralized environment for managing capital requests, business cases, and approval workflows while maintaining integration with CN’s financial systems.
By consolidating capital request management within a single governed platform, CN established a more structured and transparent process for evaluating and approving capital investments across the organization.
The implementation enabled CN to scale its capital governance framework while maintaining the flexibility required to support complex infrastructure investment programs.
CapEx360® Features
- Configurable capital request and approval workflows supporting CN’s multi-level governance requirements
- Structured business case creation with rich text, configurable forms, and supporting documentation
- Centralized management of capital investment requests across departments and operational regions
- Migration and searchability of historical capital request data for ongoing reporting and audit reference
- Full lifecycle traceability across capital requests, approvals, and supporting documentation
Integration, Automation & Governance
- Integration with SAP financial systems to maintain alignment with CN’s ERP environment
- Automated workflow routing and approval notifications across capital request stakeholders
- Configurable workflow controls to manage approval stages and governance requirements
- Centralized document and capital project data management within a unified platform
- Mobile approval capabilities enabling faster decision-making across distributed teams
Financial Control & Visibility
The introduction of CapEx360® significantly improved visibility and governance across CN’s capital investment process.
Key improvements included:
- Greater transparency across capital requests
- Improved traceability and accountability
- Enhanced collaboration across departments
- Improved reporting capabilities
These capabilities allowed CN to strengthen financial oversight while supporting the operational demands of managing capital investments across its rail infrastructure network.
It was important to us was to have a system that provides flexibility throughout the entire approval process. We are incredibly pleased with the outcome and working with your team for the implementation has been absolutely fantastic.
Josee Courchesne
Canadian National Railway
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