The Logistics Lounge: Follow The Leader Friday with YardView's Heather Giordano & Jeff Roche
YardView's COO, Heather Giordano and Director of Implementation, Jeff Roche, are guests on The Logistics Lounge's Follow The Leader Friday podcast. This episode discusses how yards are often an overlooked and critical part of the supply chain, and how YardView YMS bridges the gap between networks.
Ready to learn about YardView?
Transcript from the podcast.
16:36 - welcome to the lounge you guys surprised me I wasn't uh forgive me you said I got to pop a
16:44 - top and that's not often I get to do that at work so this is great cheers y'all it's Friday well we
16:50 - hey John we hey man our positive thoughts and prayers or with your uh with your old lady man um we hope she
16:57 - hope she gets uh get better dude and um yeah man you know just give her meds let her sleep leave her alone you know
17:05 - she'll be happy John you got to wear the nurse You Gotta Wear the nurse suit for her you gotta dress up in the nurse suit
17:11 - yeah we want to see that but not on the show send it to us privately so we can make a meme out of it and then everybody can
17:20 - laugh all right we are gonna start you know we're gonna start with the lady
17:25 - first because it is women's history month so you know uh Heather why don't you tell us a
17:31 - little bit about you like your a little bit of your backstory and you know how you came to be at yard sure so perfect
17:39 - so um my name is Heather Giordano I'm the COO here at YardView now um I've been with YardView for 12 years in my
17:46 - previous life I worked at a 3pl on the east coast and I worked there for over 10 years and I worked in their it
17:54 - Department uh but I worked with operations and uh the warehouse teams in
17:59 - that it realm and um I actually started implementing yard View and I did that for five years at that company so I
18:07 - became really familiar with all the challenges that happened in the yard I make a joke when I'm always out in the field and I say I've gotten in and out
18:13 - of so many um trucks with strange men because I just climb in the yard truck so it's kind of like a funny
18:20 - little way to put it but I do I have no coms I'll get in that truck and do the ride with them just to make sure you
18:26 - know they understand and are comfortable with our platform so um I really loved the product the very first time I rolled
18:32 - it out it was kind of a disaster as most go lives are that first time you do something and um you know we were doing
18:38 - a yard check I'm sure many of you have done those and uh it was pouring rain in New Jersey so it was awesome um but
18:47 - after that you know I just I saw the difference that having a software like
18:52 - this could have um kind of to your point Pedro that it was just mass chaos the radios people were screaming on the radio
18:58 - everybody's tensions were high everyone's like oh he's doing it to bug me or you know I hate that guy and then
19:04 - we turn the system on everything is web- based it got so quiet we all broke out
19:10 - in Giggles because it was just that uncomfortable silence we're like is everything happening you know um so ever
19:16 - since then I just loved the product I saw the um the worth in it and I started working here um with Nate Harris um and
19:24 - he's our current CEO and I love it I love the product and I just love the way when we roll it out it just
19:31 - everybody just calms down because I you know I have to bring it back to your news article but my driving simulator
19:37 - was like pull position in the arcade um so I can't even back up my driveway safe
19:43 - so um you know I have a lot of respect for what you guys do out there and um the yard drivers you know there's inches
19:49 - between those trailers so um the amount of calm that our software can bring to places like that is just amazing so yeah
19:58 - that's what I'm saying let's go hey I hope I hope Jeff I hope Jeff pops on since he has a fellow
20:06 - sistering our buddy our buddy Jeff Dickinson he is uh he's from Jersey so
20:12 - yeah maybe we drop on y'all can y'all can talk about your old haunts I don't
20:19 - know all right hey we'll just go straight uh straight down uh Jason you want to do the same thing for us brother
20:25 - man uh sure so uh my name is Jason Blan Shir I've been working for yard view for
20:30 - just about 6 months now um the previous 14 years to that was in law enforcement
20:35 - I'm working in marketing now so it's a pretty new Venture for me but uh really been loving coming into the logistics
20:41 - industry and uh learning all there is to know at this point obviously a big learning curve from what I was doing but
20:48 - it's uh it's been great awesome that's awesome you know man I could you know being ex law
20:55 - enforcement though so many so many great things comp that about marketing man you know being direct you know what I mean
21:02 - like taking no prisoners kind of thing you know what I'm saying man like just going for it that's part of what marketing is it it's translated uh
21:09 - surprisingly well um mind you in that previous realm I did a lot of other stuff that was related to marketing
21:15 - that's why the president uh did see me and say like hey I'm interested in bringing you on but uh it's been it's
21:23 - been awesome it's been wonderful to see and work for a company that is so about
21:28 - the customer so willing to put everything they've got their whole heart into taking care of the customer which is all you guys you know that's
21:35 - great man hope you uh hope you enjoy your uh your new life and Logistics man it is uh just like your previous life it
21:42 - is Ever Changing uh soon as you understand one thing they throw out the rule book the next so that's all right
21:50 - adapt and Conquer right that's what we do adap and Conquer that is that is it's like a it's like a mountain
21:55 - range every time you get to one Peak you get there and then look over and you're like [ __ ] and there's another one you
22:02 - know we had to make it really clear what we meant when we were talking about Reef first yeah I mean you do live in
22:11 - Colorado right we were like I promise it's a it's a trailer it's a type of
22:16 - trailer oh that's freaking awesome Jeff uh let let's hear it
22:22 - brother all right all right so I got a little bit of a different yard management background I've been doing
22:27 - this actually since I've been in yard management since I've been a teenager um so I had a I had a cousin
22:34 - that had a yard management company and very successful looked up to him it was something that I was born into I wanted
22:40 - to do this for my life right so I looked up to him like you were saying you know born to be a warehouse manager born I
22:45 - was born I wanted to be in yard management I was except my company my mine was cutting grass dump trucks
22:52 - spreading mulch cutting Hedges um so I wanted to be in yard management but you can say here 30 years later I'm actually
22:59 - living my dream and I'm here in yard management just not that cutting grass trimming hedges, but I've been doing
23:06 - this for a long time been doing this for a long time uh you know out of college I started out at a 3pl working
23:13 - in a warehouse doing you know Logistics yard management um I even once
23:19 - I got in a yard tractor tried to move a trailer I am not a yard driver nothing but respect for them um and then I got
23:28 - into the software into things I came to you about five years ago and I'm the director of
23:34 - Client Services now and uh just love the experience here love the exposure and really happy to be
23:41 - part of you know the yard management Arena sweet man I just I just want to
23:48 - say I appreciate your dad joke bro yeah I love that point I literally
23:54 - just timestamped it so I can make a short out of that like dude I'm a dad I got a lot of dad jokes so
24:01 - I love it like I was like okay cool he's been doing this for a while and then he goes Heather, I was like this funny son of a [ __ ] yeah no I did no
24:10 - and it's you know because I saw I saw the way you guys introduced us with the yard management
24:16 - withing and that's like that's what I did I've been doing that since I was a teenager and uh you could say I've kind
24:23 - of been in yard management almost my whole life I love that man Jared
24:29 - what's up brother how you doing man hope had a good day man um hope y'
24:34 - aren't getting any of that uh that nasty weather up there in uh Nebraska those are um those are great
24:41 - guys I mean I don't know if y'all really could use their service but e carrier check that's who uh Jared is uh Jared is
24:46 - with e carrier check freaking absolutely amazing individuals all right so um I
24:52 - just want to let y'all know if um if y'all have if y'all want to do some type of short demo or have like a quick
24:57 - YouTube video or you just want to pull up the website or I can pull up the website all you got to do is pull up the
25:05 - tab and then hit the present um icon down at the bottom of the screen and y'all can pull up and display whatever
25:10 - you want I don't know if y'all want to do that or just you know go in to start talking about stuff I thought maybe you
25:17 - know in y'all situation of visual aid would really be great for everybody for sure for sure I can definitely take
25:23 - that and um I will present my screen and I'll just kind of start out before I jump into sharing my screen I will
25:30 - just let you know I'm going to show you the two parts I'll show you the part of the inside like the warehouse uh doc
25:36 - supervisors those types of people um inside the warehouse I call it inside the walls um what they would use and
25:42 - then I'm going to show I'll also show you what the driver see so you guys can kind of see how it ties together so
25:48 - before you know my brain glitched it does it all the time so before you do that H do you want do you mind if I
25:54 - share my little story about why I'm so interested in y'all I remember told I was going to say it so I won't want
26:00 - y'all to hear it but I so my first job with my one of my first jobs after I
26:05 - got my Logistics degree was I worked for a company called e transport and they had the yard management contract uh at a
26:14 - humongous Home Depot uh DC and it was actually two DCS on one site and the
26:20 - crazy thing is both of them ran on completely different systems why I don't know but it was it was nuts so uh I was
26:28 - in charge of a team of like 30 yard drivers and we did the night the night crew um Swift was the ones that did
26:34 - pulled all the trailers and did all the deliveries we had containers that would come out of the rail yard from Fort
26:40 - Worth uh stuff that would come up from the port in Houston so it was a lot of
26:45 - traffic that was on this yard I mean and it was it was massive uh I should have pulled up a Google Maps and show you but
26:53 - probably twice the size of a normal Walmart DC so if y'all know how big those are um you know Jason Jeff Heather
27:00 - then that's what it was but my crew every day we would have or several times a day we'd have to do a yard check like
27:06 - you like y are talking about so everyone would go riding around the yard and they would have to find every trailer and
27:13 - they'd have to write it down where or write the spot down where it was if it wasn't in the right spot you had to put
27:19 - the correct spot on there and then they had to bring all that back to me and then I had to manually input it in a
27:26 - system that was like Ms Doss and I'm not [ __ ] you when I when we printed this every single day or every single
27:33 - time we printed it was over 200 Pages between the drivers that we'd have to
27:39 - print out per side and you would staple together 20 30 pages at a time you know those things would have 30
27:46 - 40 50 trailers per page and you have to drive around and find them and it was it
27:52 - was crazy it was absolutely nuts um that was 20 or something and it was so slow and
28:01 - it was just ridiculous and nobody cared like if someone picked up a trailer they were supposed to again you didn't you
28:07 - didn't write it you didn't do a system you wrote it down or they would walkie me and say hey trailer XYZ spot whatever
28:16 - and then I have to enter in the system or if I wasn't in the office I have to ride it on a notepad and then get back
28:23 - to the office it was just a dis I would say it was a disaster and since like we
28:28 - didn't our yard wasn't together but the system of figuring out where these trailers are you know what I mean and
28:34 - and all this stuff because you've been to a big DC y'all know like when they need a trailer they need it in the door
28:39 - because they're ready to unload it they can't wait you know they throwing stuff up so when I heard about y'all Jason
28:45 - when you and I connected I was like oh man this is so freaking cool I wish we would have had something like this like
28:51 - back when I was in this would have made my job so much easier I just could have rode around with a damn tablet you know
28:57 - what I mean like well yeah and the and the key there that that that's to point
29:02 - out by the time you got done doing all that it was stale it was old data those
29:07 - trailer the trailers came and went trailers are being moved empty loaded the whole time so by the time you emailed it out it was
29:14 -like no good anymore yep the yard is a living
29:20 - breathing thing you're right and man that is an extremely good point because it was like I mean we you would
29:26 - you have a trailer and like said Swift trailers were there and there were other companies because it was a drop trailer site for Swift Warner US Express a whole
29:35 - bunch of just major carriers you know what I mean and so it would and of course these carriers would send their
29:42 - drivers in to pick up these empty trailers for loads so you know we you know we'd get an alert in our
29:51 - system that says hey we need this Warner trailer and this dock to load this load
29:56 - for Warner and then you go look for it it's not there you don't know where the hell it is and so you're like okay well
30:02 - let's just go find another Warner trailer and then you got to make sure that trailer is not already designated
30:08 - to something and then if it is you gotta it's dude it was a disaster just and
30:13 - like I said the sites didn't talk to each other even though they were one location so if I wanted if I found a
30:21 - Warner trailer it was it was called the RDC and the SDC so if I found a trailer
30:26 - on the SDC side that I needed for RDC I had to pull it out of one system and
30:32 - then put it into another s it was just freaking nuts man oh man it was so crazy
30:38 - it I mean you're putting it in a nutshell exactly why yard management exists I think a lot of people we just
30:45 - went to manifest and put a booth up and we were able to have some conversation and at a at a trade show like manifest
30:51 - as large as it is and has many Logistics and 3pls and all the companies that are there it was amazing to hear how many
30:58 - had never even heard of yard management it was just crazy because as
31:04 - we look at what yard management does for companies and what you know through our experience over 26 years of experience
31:11 - we we've realized that it's still not become mainstream for people to understand that it's a big black hole
