What is IoT-Enabled Truck Yard Management?

IoT-enabled truck yard management uses sensors and devices to monitor, manage, and automate the processes involved in managing truck yards and docks, including loading and unloading, assigning docks, and monitoring truck movement in order to increase visibility over truck movement, increase operational efficiency and reduce detention costs.

Value Proposition

Manual yard management is costly both in manpower and in time, requiring a human to schedule gates and trucks, monitor loading and unloading times, and manage the status of individual docks and doors. Not to mention that many of these processes, including yard checks, are still done on pen and paper.

Through these manual processes, warehouse companies often lose all visibility into operational efficiency and are unable to highlight exactly where the operational bottlenecks are. And if they are willing to put in the hours it requires, comparisons of reports often require digging through pages of on-paper reports that can be inconsistent manager-to-manager.

Truck yard management solutions seek to increase visibility into the daily operations of the truck yard like awaiting freight and trailers, occupied and unoccupied loading docks, and delays getting in and out of the yard in order to allow managers to identify inefficiencies and better manage maintenance schedules for equipment to reduce downtime.

A study by Zebra YMS found that they were able to reduce time spent processing drivers by 50 percent with the implementation of their software.

How it Works

IoT-enabled truck yard management solutions provide visibility across assets in a truck yard, using sensors to detect door positions, and track vehicles as they move through processes. As a result, these solutions are able to appropriately assign and schedule gates to trailers dependent on their cargo type, track and account for assets, and levy detention fees, all without human intervention.

By tracking trucks and trailers, automatically assigning docks and time slots, and monitoring yard access and movement in real-time, these solutions are able to increase operating efficiency and ensure worker safety across all yard operations.

Key Benefits of IoT-Enabled Truck Yard Management

• Minimize truck downtime with automatic shipment rescheduling.
• Reduce yard congestion and time spent queueing at the gate by automating and optimizing delivery schedules and dock assignment.
• Automatically track unloading times and reduce detention costs.
• Better enable standardization and consistency across processes, such as inspecting shipments and checking-in drivers.
• Gain insight into operational bottlenecks and easily compare key historical metrics month-to-month.