The yard is not the most efficient place to work when your company is using a paper system. There is a lot of duplicate effort, run around and idling in between tasks, and general confusion. Some of the greatest challenges include locating missing trailers, expediting loads, and reporting. What if we told you that by the end of this article, we could solve those problems and make life in the yard sane again? Read on to see how we solve the three biggest problems in logistics with a YMS System.
1) Misplaced Trailers
Every now and then trailers are misplaced and it takes hours to locate them because the paperwork has gone missing or is incomplete. When dealing with trailers that contain food or other perishable product, this can result in significant losses both in the product itself and credibility with clients. However, this entire situation could have been avoided if the yard was equipped with a YMS System. The yard management system shows where all of your assets are, updated in real time, and can easily be accessed on any data enabled device. This will eliminate missing trailers and ease the pressure of keeping track of food and other perishable products.
2) Hot Load Emergencies
A hot load is a shipment that is usually late leaving the yard. The load must leave the yard right away and arrive to the destination as soon as possible. To truckers, they are often defined as cargo that will arrive with slightly questionable driving practices. Hot load emergencies are not among the best practices that we have within the logistics industry, and can make for less than optimal decisions regarding safety.
With a YMS system, the need for hot loads essentially disappears, since yard managers are sent daily reports on the status of every trailer and when they should leave the yard. There are also push notifications through features like “detention defender” which is offered exclusively through Exotrac’s YardTrac Pro. Detention defender grants yard managers access to custom reports that show the status of every trailer, when they arrived, when they need to leave the yard, and also helps yard managers to plan their arrivals and departures in a smarter way by utilizing their data anytime, anywhere.
3) Report Runaround
How many times has this happened to you: You have a presentation in two hours to discuss the productivity of your spotters. It took you two weeks to pull together all of the information you needed for it. Your boss comes in and would like information on how many people are checking in and out of security added onto the report, as well as information on carriers and the number of shuttles performed per day. Now you begin to panic because this is an impossible task, at least it is without a yard management system.
When using a YMS System, you can access your information without having to call down to security. There is no wasting time trying to track down the paper logs from last week and decipher 5 handwriting. All of your reports are in one convenient location and are updated in real time. By using Exotrac’s YardTrac Pro, you gain access to reports such as KPI, Detention Defender, Dispatch History, Employee Scans, Bob Tail, Arrival/ Departure Log, Dock Door, Exceptions, Auto Arrival, Yard Capacity, Aging, and Turn Time Reports.
If you are still having trouble deciding if Exotrac is the right YMS system for you, download our latest case study by clicking here. Want to book a demo with us? Call us at 212.989.0171, or click the link below to send us your information at info@exotrac.com.
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