How Does Dwell Time Affect Supply Chain Management?
Multiple factors can cause increased dwell time in shipping. Common causes include port congestion, limited dock space, an ineffective logistics strategy, and labor shortages. Although some of these factors are beyond your control, it’s important to fix what you can.
Longer dwell times can delay shipments, which makes customers unhappy and can potentially damage your relationships. You may also lose money spent on detention costs and demurrage fees (costs for storing something at port for longer than the contracted time). Truck drivers and other delivery vehicles reduce their overall volume and productivity, which also wastes money.
Dwell time also increases your environmental impact. Trucks, ships, and other vessels idling at ports and warehouses waiting for deliveries release greenhouse gases into the environment. They also consume more fuel and risk sitting in traffic longer than if the initial delivery was on time.
Causes of Dwell Time
In logistics, dwell time refers to the length of time inventory sits at different spots within the supply chain from the warehouse to the delivery dock. These are common causes of dwell time in logistics:
- Vessel Dwell Time: refers to how long a ship stays in port being loaded, unloaded, secured, and sitting idle.
- Container Dwell Time: refers to how long an unloaded container spends at a port, terminal, warehouse, or other location before moving on.
- Customs Clearance and Procedures: refers to the process of getting government permission to move inventory from one country to another.
- Weather and Environmental Factors: refers to extreme weather conditions such as storms, extreme temperatures, and visibility that impact shipping speeds. Environmental factors can also include accidents, road closures, and rush hour congestion.
- Complexity of Cargo and Handling: Refers to cargo characteristics that impact loading and unloading. For example, mixed pallet loads and loads with hazardous materials are more complex.
How Do You Calculate Dwell Time?
To determine how dwell time is impacting your logistics operations, you need to calculate it. To calculate dwell time in shipping, subtract the arrival time from the departure time at each stage of the process.
For example, if a truck arrives at your warehouse at 12:00 P.M. and departs at 2:30 P.M., the dwell time is 2 hours and 30 minutes. Once you’ve measured dwell times at each step of the supply chain, you can calculate averages, compare metrics over time, and assess them against industry standards.
5 Strategies to Consider for Reducing Dwell Time
If you’ve noticed your dwell times getting longer or that they don’t stack up to competitors, use these production control strategies to move your inventory faster.
1. Streamline Load and Unloading Process
Assess your current load and unloading processes to identify weak spots and eliminate bottlenecks. Schedule appointments with carriers, shippers, and other members of your logistics team to manage workflows and reduce wait times. When your warehouse and yard managers know what to expect, they can effectively plan around labor needs.
Use pre-freight planning to speed up the loading process. Prepare freight before trucks arrive by verifying orders, packaging merchandise, and preparing palettes. When possible, schedule no-touch loads in which a designated team unloads and reloads each truck.
2. Integrate Technology
Real-time tracking technology including RFID tags, yard management software, and packaging management solutions offered by Surgere help you locate items across the supply chain. RFID tags and transportation visibility platforms let you track your merchandise throughout the shipping process so you can prep your warehouse.
Yard management solutions help your team quickly locate items for pre-freight staging. Package specification management systems help you find the right packaging for each item that complies with local regulations, which speeds up customs and handling.
3. Optimize Scheduling Practices
Use predictive analytics and other technology to schedule pickups and deliveries throughout the day. Predictive analytics can help you identify potential disruptions and bottlenecks so you can schedule around them. For example, if you commonly have a heavy load that takes 20 minutes longer to unload at the same time each week, you can staff accordingly and push back the next scheduled delivery.
AI-powered scheduling tools also analyze historical data to identify customer behavior patterns and seasonal trends for dynamic slotting. Instead of using the same warehouse configuration all year, you can move items based on demand or seasonality.
Offer your warehouse team flexible schedules to make them more productive and motivated. You can manage your teams’ schedules based on your needs for the day. Your team has less downtime on the job and they have more personal time.
4. Driver Management
Encourage open communication between drivers and your warehouse team. Clear communication lets drivers and your warehouse staff prepare for each delivery with detailed instructions. Drivers should also be able to call you when they’re running late due to traffic, weather, and other conditions.
Utilize systems that reduce downtime such as having a driver drop off a loader trailer and pick up an empty one.
5. Yard Management System
Use a yard management system to make the loading and unloading process more efficient by optimizing your facility’s layout and organization. Store merchandise in a way that enhances traffic flow and allows your team to move in-demand inventory quickly.
Designate separate locations for loading and unloading to keep teams from impeding each other.
Reduce Dwell Times with Surgere’s Innovative AI Technology
Surgere’s AI solutions identifies common causes of long dwell times. We offer inventory management, warehouse management, container tracking, and other solutions that will improve supply chain visibility and help you make your processes more efficient.
Schedule a demo today to see what we can do for you.
