Top 10 Reasons Why Yard Management Systems Are a Critical Enabler for the Enterprise

I often get asked the question “What can a Yard Management System (YMS) do for my organization”.

Below, I’ve compiled the Top 10 most common benefits:

1. Visibility
Without an advanced yard management system, organizations are reduced to doing a daily yard check with pen and paper, and spending hours reconciling what they found with previous checks.

2. Velocity
A YMS provides real-time visibility into asset locations and their operational status including dwell times in various states. By monitoring all the delays in the visit lifecycle, it becomes possible to accelerate operations, such as rapidly identifying available empty trailers for outbound loads.

3. Safety
A YMS can improve safety by eliminating the need to have people walking around the yard performing manual checks. Instrumentation on yard trucks monitors speed, safe practices and hours of service for yard truck drivers.

4. Process Conformity
The YMS will ensure every trailer, tractor, and driver entering the facility is checked-in and out in a consistent way. Seals are checked, the damage is recorded and shipment information is associated with the trailer number.

5. Operational Efficiency
The imperative for so many facilities is to reduce yard congestion, queuing at the gate and throughput in general.

6. Spotter Efficiency
A yard management system greatly improves spotter move times and enables shuttle drivers to electronically receive, accept and confirm completion of move requests, eliminating radio communication, pen, and paper in the cab.

7. Improve Planning Applications
The YMS sits at the intersection of the WMS and TMS. It complements and augments the planning functions within these systems by providing execution visibility.

8. The Network Perspective
Organizations typically fail to take a network view of their YMS deployments. By running facilities in isolation, they fail to recognize labor savings by consolidating talent into centralized control towers. The network view allows organizations to pool assets, including empty trailers, yard trucks and to compare operational effectiveness across locations.

9. Collaboration/Transparency
Progressive shippers and 3PLs think of visiting carriers as their customers. Some even provide Carriers with access to their YMS, so they can send real-time shipment notifications, which can happen before the shipment leaves the source facility.

10. SAVINGS
Automating yard operations with a YMS is often justified through a combination of reduced demurrage costs, lower driver detention fees, and increased throughput.

The value of the Yard Management Systems often varies by industry vertical.

For internet retailers, velocity is everything, while a manufacturer values knowing where their inventory is in the yard to feed the production line.

Retail distribution values on-time deliveries that drives customer satisfaction.

SMART AND SCALABLE: Advanced Yard Management System

About the Author

Matt Yearling joined PINC Solutions as chief executive officer in March 2013 and is responsible for the overall strategic and operational management of the company. Matt’s past roles include vice president and general manager of Encryption Products at Symantec Corporation, senior vice president of Global CRM Product Development at Sage Inc., Chief Technology Officer for Embarcadero Systems Corp (a Ports America company). As vice president of Oracle On Demand Matt played a pivotal role in making it Oracle’s fastest growing line-of-business.

Note: This article first appeared on Logistics Viewpoints

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