James Cooke is a principal analyst with Nucleus Research in Boston, covering supply chain planning software. He was previously the editor of CSCMP?s Supply Chain Quarterly and a staff writer for DC Velocity.
Do you have a trailer logjam outside your distribution center that's slowing down operations? Are you using the trailers parked in your yard for overflow storage? Are you unable to quickly pinpoint which trailer has the goods that must be unloaded right away to fill an urgent order?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it's time to consider buying a yard management system (YMS), a type of software that, as its name implies, helps users manage the trailers outside the distribution center.
"A basic YMS tells you where you can find trailers in the yard so that the 'shunter' can move the trailer to the assigned dock door without having to manually search the yard," explains Marc Wulfraat, president of consulting company MWPVL International Inc. "This is the equivalent of an inventory control system in that it tells you where the trailer was placed in the past."
As for who offers this type of software, there are a number of sources. Most of the major vendors of warehouse management systems (WMS) offer YMS as an add-on module. For instance, RedPrairie, Manhattan Associates, and HighJump all offer YMS solutions that work with their WMS offerings. Yard management systems are also available from specialty vendors like C3 Solutions and Yardview, as well as Exotrac, which offers a cloud-based version. There are also vendors, such as Pinc Solutions, that use location technology to provide up-to-the-minute information on the whereabouts of a trailer.
If you're in the market for a YMS, what should you look for? We asked several industry experts for their advice. What follows are their recommendations for five "must have" capabilities:
1. Appointment scheduling. Any YMS worth its salt should offer an appointment scheduling capability, according to the experts. Setting a time and date for a truck to arrive at the distribution center is critical to managing work flow in the yard and in the facility itself. "From a warehouse operations perspective, the first and foremost feature is robust appointment scheduling functionality," says Mike Pujda, a project manager at the consulting firm Tompkins International Inc.
Pujda recommends choosing a YMS that incorporates a "self-service" online pOréal that suppliers can use to schedule delivery appointments for inbound shipments. Once the appointment is made, the program should be able to take information on the load—including the type of shipment and its priority—and match it to available receiving capacity at the DC. This should eliminate the need for manual intervention by DC employees.
2. Alerts. For operations facing capacity or labor constraints, using trailers for temporary overflow storage can eliminate the need to rent costly satellite storage space. "Usually, you're allowed to keep a trailer for a number of days if you don't own it. So, you want to maximize the free rent days," says Phil Obal, president of the consulting firm IDII.
But there's a catch: Hold a trailer too long and you risk incurring demurrage changes, which are penalties imposed by motor carriers for a consignee's failure to unload and return a trailer within a designated period. That's why Obal strongly recommends choosing a YMS that alerts the manager when a trailer return deadline is approaching.
3. User-defined rules. Since each company's priorities are different, the YMS should allow the user to set up his or her own rules specifying when certain trailers get pulled forward in a yard, says Wulfraat.
This capability allows the logistics manager to ensure scheduling reflects the company's individual needs and priorities—whether the objective is to maximize sales, optimize customer service, or simply deal with scheduling constraints. For instance, a logistics manager could have the YMS flag trailers that contain inventory needed to fill back orders for prompt unloading. Or the YMS could organize trailer movements and unloading based on workforce requirements.
4. Task management. Picking a YMS that includes task management capabilities—i.e., a program with the capacity to direct workers to the next assignment—can go a long way toward streamlining work flow. For example, once a yard driver drops a trailer at a dock door, the YMS could then provide the driver with instructions on what trailer to move next. "Time is saved when work is presented to the user rather than the user checking in for the next [assignment]," says Pujda.
Pujda notes that this is more than a matter of simply running down a list and checking off tasks. The YMS should be able to rank the moves requested in order of priority and assign work accordingly. If two moves have the same level of priority, the YMS should be "smart" enough to assign the move closest to the yard driver for the sake of efficiency.
5. Event management integration. Because so many companies these days run lean on inventory, real-time information on inbound shipments has become essential to the smooth functioning of an operation. For that reason, Greg Braun, a senior vice president at C3 Solutions, advises shippers to look for a YMS that can be integrated with other company systems. "To be truly effective, a yard management system needs to be able to integrate into a WMS and TMS [transportation management system]," he says.
Linking the YMS to other company systems allows for crucial information on "events" to be instantaneously communicated across the network, so the system can determine the next steps to take. Pujda offers the example of a retail operation, where notification of a trailer's arrival might trigger an inventory allocation program to assign the goods to a particular store. That decision would then dictate whether the goods are sent to storage or cross-docked for loading onto an outbound truck.
Event management capabilities can also include electronic communication with carrier information systems. For example, at the same time the YMS records the movement of a newly unloaded trailer back to the yard, the system could automatically notify the carrier that its equipment is ready for pickup.
A LOW-COST WAY TO BOOST EFFICIENCY
All technology comes at a price, and yard management software is no exception. But the experts interviewed for this article point out that there can also be a price to pay for not investing in technology with the potential to bring order to a chaotic operation. For that reason, they urge managers experiencing yard management headaches not to be put off by the costs of the software.
"YMS systems today are pretty low cost," says Obal. "If you have more than 10 trailers, you need to do something for sure. It's better than having someone trying to remember what's outside in the yard."
By the numbers, fourth quarter shipment volume was down 4.7% compared to the prior quarter, while spending dropped 2.2%.
Geographically, fourth-quarter shipment volume was low across all regions. The Northeast had the smallest decline at 1.2% with the West just behind with a contraction of 2.1%. And the Southeast saw shipments drop 6.7%, the most of all regions, as hurricanes impacted freight activity.
“While this quarter’s Index revealed spending overall on truck freight continues to decline, we did see some signs that spending per truck is increasing,” said Bobby Holland, U.S. Bank director of freight business analytics. “Shipments falling more than spending – even with lower fuel surcharges – suggests tighter capacity.”
The U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index measures quantitative changes in freight shipments and spend activity based on data from transactions processed through U.S. Bank Freight Payment, which processes more than $43 billion in freight payments annually for shippers and carriers across the U.S.
“It’s clear there are both cyclical and structural challenges remaining as we look for a truck freight market reboot,” Bob Costello, senior vice president and chief economist at the American Trucking Associations (ATA) said in a release on the results. “For instance, factory output softness – which has a disproportionate impact on truck freight volumes – is currently weighing heavily on our industry.”
Volvo Autonomous Solutions will form a strategic partnership with autonomous driving technology and generative AI provider Waabi to jointly develop and deploy autonomous trucks, with testing scheduled to begin later this year.
The announcement came two weeks after autonomous truck developer Kodiak Robotics said it had become the first company in the industry to launch commercial driverless trucking operations. That milestone came as oil company Atlas Energy Solutions Inc. used two RoboTrucks—which are semi-trucks equipped with the Kodiak Driver self-driving system—to deliver 100 loads of fracking material on routes in the Permian Basin in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.
Atlas now intends to scale up its RoboTruck deployment “considerably” over the course of 2025, with multiple RoboTruck deployments expected throughout the year. In support of that, Kodiak has established a 12-person office in Odessa, Texas, that is projected to grow to approximately 20 people by the end of Q1 2025.
Businesses dependent on ocean freight are facing shipping delays due to volatile conditions, as the global average trip for ocean shipments climbed to 68 days in the fourth quarter compared to 60 days for that same quarter a year ago, counting time elapsed from initial booking to clearing the gate at the final port, according to E2open.
Those extended transit times and booking delays are the ripple effects of ongoing turmoil at key ports that is being caused by geopolitical tensions, labor shortages, and port congestion, Dallas-based E2open said in its quarterly “Ocean Shipping Index” report.
The most significant contributor to the year-over-year (YoY) increase is actual transit time, alongside extraordinary volatility that has created a complex landscape for businesses dependent on ocean freight, the report found.
"Economic headwinds, geopolitical turbulence and uncertain trade routes are creating unprecedented disruptions within the ocean shipping industry. From continued Red Sea diversions to port congestion and labor unrest, businesses face a complex landscape of obstacles, all while grappling with possibility of new U.S. tariffs," Pawan Joshi, chief strategy officer (CSO) at e2open, said in a release. "We can expect these ongoing issues will be exacerbated by the Lunar New Year holiday, as businesses relying on Asian suppliers often rush to place orders, adding strain to their supply chains.”
Lunar New Year this year runs from January 29 to February 8, and often leads to supply chain disruptions as massive worker travel patterns across Asia leads to closed factories and reduced port capacity.
Women are significantly underrepresented in the global transport sector workforce, comprising only 12% of transportation and storage workers worldwide as they face hurdles such as unfavorable workplace policies and significant gender gaps in operational, technical and leadership roles, a study from the World Bank Group shows.
This underrepresentation limits diverse perspectives in service design and decision-making, negatively affects businesses and undermines economic growth, according to the report, “Addressing Barriers to Women’s Participation in Transport.” The paper—which covers global trends and provides in-depth analysis of the women’s role in the transport sector in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—was prepared jointly by the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Transport Forum (ITF).
The slim proportion of women in the sector comes at a cost, since increasing female participation and leadership can drive innovation, enhance team performance, and improve service delivery for diverse users, while boosting GDP and addressing critical labor shortages, researchers said.
To drive solutions, the researchers today unveiled the Women in Transport (WiT) Network, which is designed to bring together transport stakeholders dedicated to empowering women across all facets and levels of the transport sector, and to serve as a forum for networking, recruitment, information exchange, training, and mentorship opportunities for women.
Initially, the WiT network will cover only the Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa regions, but it is expected to gradually expand into a global initiative.
“When transport services are inclusive, economies thrive. Yet, as this joint report and our work at the EIB reveal, few transport companies fully leverage policies to better attract, retain and promote women,” Laura Piovesan, the European Investment Bank (EIB)’s Director General of the Projects Directorate, said in a release. “The Women in Transport Network enables us to unite efforts and scale impactful solutions - benefiting women, employers, communities and the climate.”
Oh, you work in logistics, too? Then you’ve probably met my friends Truedi, Lumi, and Roger.
No, you haven’t swapped business cards with those guys or eaten appetizers together at a trade-show social hour. But the chances are good that you’ve had conversations with them. That’s because they’re the online chatbots “employed” by three companies operating in the supply chain arena—TrueCommerce,Blue Yonder, and Truckstop. And there’s more where they came from. A number of other logistics-focused companies—like ChargePoint,Packsize,FedEx, and Inspectorio—have also jumped in the game.
While chatbots are actually highly technical applications, most of us know them as the small text boxes that pop up whenever you visit a company’s home page, eagerly asking questions like:
“I’m Truedi, the virtual assistant for TrueCommerce. Can I help you find what you need?”
“Hey! Want to connect with a rep from our team now?”
“Hi there. Can I ask you a quick question?”
Chatbots have proved particularly popular among retailers—an October survey by artificial intelligence (AI) specialist NLX found that a full 92% of U.S. merchants planned to have generative AI (GenAI) chatbots in place for the holiday shopping season. The companies said they planned to use those bots for both consumer-facing applications—like conversation-based product recommendations and customer service automation—and for employee-facing applications like automating business processes in buying and merchandising.
But how smart are these chatbots really? It varies. At the high end of the scale, there’s “Rufus,” Amazon’s GenAI-powered shopping assistant. Amazon says millions of consumers have used Rufus over the past year, asking it questions either by typing or speaking. The tool then searches Amazon’s product listings, customer reviews, and community Q&A forums to come up with answers. The bot can also compare different products, make product recommendations based on the weather where a consumer lives, and provide info on the latest fashion trends, according to the retailer.
Another top-shelf chatbot is “Manhattan Active Maven,” a GenAI-powered tool from supply chain software developer Manhattan Associates that was recently adopted by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service. The Exchange Service, which is the 54th-largest retailer in the U.S., is using Maven to answer inquiries from customers—largely U.S. soldiers, airmen, and their families—including requests for information related to order status, order changes, shipping, and returns.
However, not all chatbots are that sophisticated, and not all are equipped with AI, according to IBM. The earliest generation—known as “FAQ chatbots”—are only clever enough to recognize certain keywords in a list of known questions and then respond with preprogrammed answers. In contrast, modern chatbots increasingly use conversational AI techniques such as natural language processing to “understand” users’ questions, IBM said. It added that the next generation of chatbots with GenAI capabilities will be able to grasp and respond to increasingly complex queries and even adapt to a user’s style of conversation.
Given their wide range of capabilities, it’s not always easy to know just how “smart” the chatbot you’re talking to is. But come to think of it, maybe that’s also true of the live workers we come in contact with each day. Depending on who picks up the phone, you might find yourself speaking with an intern who’s still learning the ropes or a seasoned professional who can handle most any challenge. Either way, the best way to interact with our new chatbot colleagues is probably to take the same approach you would with their human counterparts: Start out simple, and be respectful; you never know what you’ll learn.