3 YMS Challenges Impacting Your Bottom Line
The last mile in your supply chain may be the most expensive if operations are disorganized leaving gaps and inefficiencies that are costing you. Do you know what areas are negatively impacting your bottom line?
1. Inventory Management
A yard management system provides you with real-time data so you know what’s in the yard, what’s inside the assets, priority loads, exceptions and what to do next. Without a reliable yard management solution, the entire supply chain is adversely affected when information is not properly documented and communicated. Lack of visibility impacts the warehouse, yard and transportation sectors. Some companies utilize RFID tags, others barcodes and some utilize GPS – all of which provide different areas of strengths and weaknesses contributing to visibility in the operations.
2. Detention and Demurrage Fees
When empty containers are stored too long or sit empty too long, charges are incurred known as detention and demurrage fees. How do you track which trailers are empty, where they are located and how long they have been there? As you are walking around a yard making notes, trailers are passing you in both directions. By the time that paper gets back to the desk, it’s already outdated.
Many yard management systems provide the ability to confirm or contest the fees and you may even allow the carrier to access some of the information themselves. System alerts, e-mails and text messages notify personnel of approaching deadlines and fees. Ultimately, you can reduce fees by 97% with a dependable yard management system.
3. Dock Management
The ability to locate empty trailers and request them to or from a gate is a common problem for every yard. Managing the dock is all about the ability to meet load schedules and avoid congestion.
A cloud-based yard solution connects everyone together with an appointments and scheduling tool to ensure a dock runs smoothly. A calendar view provides a complete overview of pending and late receiving appointments as well as pending and late shipping appointments. Easily view the schedule, pending, completed and late appointments at the touch of a button, then use available reports to highlight yard inefficiencies that can be improved.