With inflation, geopolitical conflicts, and other issues continuing to impact supply chain operations, you need to organize your systems to keep your inventory flowing as smoothly as possible. Implementing a yard management system can help you tackle these challenges and fulfill orders more quickly than relying on old inventory management methods with a paper trail. Yard management companies are developing solutions to help automate workflows and simplify warehouse management, allowing businesses like yours to keep customers supplied.
What Is a Yard Management System?
A yard management system is a software solution designed to help you better manage your supply chain systems. These solutions allow you to effectively schedule, coordinate, and direct operations within your dock and yard. You might use the system to direct inbound and outbound shipments, track and manage inventory levels, and improve communication between dock managers and workers, for example.
How Does Yard Management Impact Your Supply Chain Operations?
Yard management software helps you optimize each part of yard activities, including:
- Load planning
- Gate management
- Yard slotting
With a supply chain management system in place, you can organize operations, equipment, vehicles, containers, personnel, and other resources to function more effectively. You can optimize daily yard activity to speed up the entire supply chain without increasing your labor costs. A good yard management solution will help you streamline warehouse management so each process runs more smoothly and your shipments get on the road faster.
The Key Benefits of Implementing a Yard Management System
Help your yard workers boost their efficiency by using a yard management system to achieve a modern supply chain and reap the following benefits.
Enhanced Visibility and Inventory Control
Use software to improve yard visibility by gathering real-time data on your inventory. Evaluate common supply chain industry customer data to better predict supply and demand and plan accordingly.
Yard management isn’t limited to data analytics. With a warehouse management system or a container yard management system, you can enter the contents of each container into a database as soon as they are unloaded onto the dock. You can also pinpoint their location in the warehouse.
With these tools, your team doesn’t have to spend time tracking down purchase orders to calculate the inventory available for an order. They can also save time loading and unloading each shipment.
Many modern yard management systems automate tasks such as inventory ordering, automatically placing an order when inventory reaches a certain level. Automated ordering makes it more likely that you’ll have inventory on hand when your customers need it. You can also reduce storage costs by cutting back on excessive inventory.
Optimized Yard Operations and Reduced Dwell Times
Because your yard management solution allows you to locate inventory, you can schedule yard trucks based on specific logistics of your warehouse or dock. You can optimize the transportation management system to reduce loading times by eliminating the need to look through paper purchase orders and container management documents. Instead, your team can easily identify what’s in each container and pull inventory from multiple locations in the warehouse. When unloading trucks, they can document where they store each container together with a listing of its inventory and the date when it was stored.
A yard management system allows you to plan for each shipment, letting your team load and unload each truck more efficiently. A more efficient yard helps reduce dwell times, as trucks can get into and out of your dock faster.
Cost Savings and Improved Resource Utilization
Your yard management software not only allows you to track and monitor inventory in real time, but it also lets you evaluate how you’re utilizing resources. With these systems, you can identify and eliminate bottlenecks in your processes, which may help you save overtime hours and labor costs.
Because you can track each supply chain step accurately, you can return containers and other resources on time, saving money on detention charges and other unnecessary fees. A more efficient yard is also safer because you can monitor yard activities and stop a hazardous situation before it happens. This visibility can reduce accident rates, cutting down on workers’ compensation insurance and other accident-related costs.
You can also monitor previous equipment logs to predict maintenance needs or set up preventive maintenance schedules, reducing downtime and saving money on large emergency repairs. Use data on loading and unloading times to manage supply chain professionals, keeping your staff at optimal levels for your volume.
Improved Decision Making and Data-Driven Insights
Optimizing your yard management processes gives you a better picture of your entire supply chain. Use this data to generate more accurate estimated delivery times for your customers, or send them real-time tracking data.
When you can consistently deliver on your ETAs, your customers will be more satisfied. The data from a yard management system helps you identify potential shipping delays and pass that information on to your customers before it becomes a service issue. If you have had multiple delays, you can evaluate your yard management processes to determine what is happening to delay your shipments. You might learn that your warehouse is disorganized, causing workers to spend excessive time locating and moving inventory, for example.
Many modern yard management systems also offer customizable dashboards with data visualizations such as comparison charts and graphs you can use to identify operational inefficiencies. Use predictive analytics to plan inventory levels based on historical patterns to manage purchase orders and avoid potential stockouts.
Leverage the Power of Interius for Yard Management
If you’re ready to operate a dynamic yard with improved efficiency, check out Interius. This management system offers all the insights you need for the foundation of yard management. Our sensor-based IoT technology gives you access to real-time data to help you manage assets and optimize your yard. With our solution, you can map your supply chain to make smarter decisions and automate various processes.
Stay ahead of the competition with a yard management service that helps you deliver on time every time. Request a demo to find out more.
