July/August 2007 Food Logistics
"Our YMS has sensible solutions for a small cost"
Tim Oglesby, operations and customer service manager.Kraft Norcross, GA.
Before the Kraft Foods distribution center in Norcross, GA, installed a yard management system (YMS), the manually managed yard used a two-way radio system and paper to record activities. With several hundred trailers in the yard at any given time, manual yard management could be a Herculean task.
"Truck coordinators and trailer spotters would have to communicate by radio, write down the task assignments, locate and spot the trailers, then radio back again to confirm all the necessary information," states Tim Oglesby, operations and customer service manager.
Using YMS now, trailers are parked in particular zones according to temperature class. Working in real time, the YMS reduces the time it takes waiting to spot trailers to a door. "It used to take up to 20 minutes to find a trailer if we didn't know where it was," says Oglesby.
"Now we get a 'systematic' history of equipment movement as well as how long a trailer has been on the yard, whether it's been empty or loaded and to which shipment number and customer name it's assigned. It also benefits our carriers by optimizing their trailer pools and lets them know when they have too many or too few trailers."
The YMS program uses a drag-and-drop system allowing the truck coordinator to assign trailers to specific doors.
"They just have to hit that trailer on the screen and drag it to the door and that action automatically makes an assignment for one of the yard spotters so he knows there is a move request waiting," explains Oglesby. "He goes to that space, gets the trailer and brings it to the door. Once that's done, he hits 'OK' and the system drops that task off the screen. Once the trailer load/unload is complete, the truck coordinators drag and drop again, noting the trailer number on the door and the trailer disposition. Then they move it to an assigned space in the yard."
Kraft was able to eliminate all but one manual yard check, which used to take several hours a day. "Our YMS has sensible solutions for a small cost," notes Oglesby. The system keeps online fuel and temperature logs of all trailers. It also tracks dwell time, helping customers reduce detention costs.
Oglesby says YMS brings order to the yard, extending efficiencies within the warehouse to those in the yard. He adds the company's YMS paid for itself within 18 months. - A.T.