Who's Watching Your Yard?

Eager to obtain better visibility over their end-to-end supply chains, companies invest in supply chain solutions like Transportation Management Systems (TMS) and Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) to help orchestrate the movement of products through distribution centers and across roadways, railways, and oceans. Along the way, many of these firms overlook the need for automated yard management - a process enabled by a YMS, or Yard Management System.

Often included under the WMS or TMS umbrella, but also sold as standalone solutions that layer onto existing WMS, TMS, and/or ERP systems, a YMS oversees the movement of vehicles in a manufacturer's or distributor's yard. Using these systems, companies can go beyond the traditional pen and paper or spreadsheet approach and gain real-time access to information about trailer location, movement, and status.

Consider, for example, the loaded, refrigerated trailer or "reefer" whose contents will face certain spoilage if left sitting for more than an hour. Rather than relying on a driver or dispatcher to ensure quick turnaround on that particular vehicle, a YMS can be programmed to send alerts and recommendations when such trailers are on premise. Additionally, YMS helps employees identify and then move trailers from staging areas to dock areas in order to fill the trucks in the most efficient manner possible.

In Yard Management Solutions Impose Control on an Inherently Chaotic Process, ARC Advisory Group analyst Steve Banker writes that YMS functionality includes dock door scheduling, check in and check out, location of trailers in the yards, trailer asset management, and efficiently moving trucks and trailers to and from dock ...