THE BLUEPRINT
Transform your yard
This step-by-step guide will help you on your way to efficiency and agility.
If you're already an experienced user of the Time Slot Management tool, skip to Step 5 and 6.
STEP 1.
Assess ‘as-is’
situation
First, gain clarity and assess your situation. Determine if you actually have a problem that needs solving.
Not every plant requires a dock scheduling solution – for instance, a plant handling just 5-10 trucks a day might not benefit from it at all.
Avoid implementing solutions where no issue exists.
Use the questions below to evaluate whether your business problems could be solved by implementing a dock scheduling solution:
Consider dedicating a few weeks to monitoring these factors, and avoid overcomplicating your analysis. It could be as simple as tasking a colleague with monitoring yard KPIs using a stopwatch to gather data.
With clear insights into your current situation, you can identify the root causes of any problems and define your goals – what you want to achieve and optimise. Only then should you start looking for vendors capable of addressing the specific challenges you've recognised.
QUESTION 1:
Where are the bottlenecks in your yard?
What percentage of trucks typically arrive with delays?
QUESTION 2:
How long does it take for a truck to register?
If it’s too long, how does this impact your business?
QUESTION 3:
Are there any language barriers in your yard?
Is this contributing to issues and delays?
QUESTION 4:
What are the actual demurrage costs that you’re paying?
QUESTION 5:
What is the average waiting time in your yard?
STEP 2.
Select the right vendor for your business
Some dock scheduling solutions may initially seem attractive but might not meet all long-term needs.
For example, loading and unloading times vary, so your system should specify the required time for each activity to avoid inefficiencies.
Consider the complexity of your loading and unloading activities; loading at different yard areas or external warehouses may be necessary. Your solution should book slots at all required gates and confirm capacity. It should also accommodate customer pickups and numerous inbound and outbound flows, allowing carriers to make one-time bookings.
The vendor should have a proven track record with similar complex implementations and offer robust, multi-language support.
Finally, evaluate the vendor’s references and experience. Ensure they have successfully managed implementations for customers of your size and complexity. This thorough approach to vendor selection will help you choose a solution that meets your specific needs and supports your operational goals.
Industry specifics are crucial when choosing a dock scheduling solution. The tool should adapt to your industry's realities, not force you to change your processes.
Find out how Transporeon's Time Slot Management tool fit right into Shell Chemicals' operations.
STEP 3.
Share maximum flexibility
Many shippers dictate specific time slots for carriers to avoid congestion, but this can cause inefficiencies, like drivers idling between jobs.
Focus on what matters: on-time delivery to customers. Flexibility in loading times allows carriers to optimize their schedules.
For example, as long as the delivery deadline is met, it doesn't matter if loading happens at 8am or 12pm.
Define rules clearly but allow flexibility where possible. You can still control critical shipments with stricter time slots. Offering flexibility helps carriers and makes you a preferred shipper. In a fluctuating market, flexibility prevents you from being blacklisted and ensures you remain a Shipper of Choice.
Become a Shipper of Choice with Transporeon
Hear from the leading steel producer thyssenkrupp on how Transporeon’s dock and yard solutions help them to collaborate more efficiently and reduce lengthy waiting times.
“The biggest step forward with Time Slot Management is transparency. It’s the ability to see where the problems occur, the ability to get into discussion with responsible persons/teams at loading ramps and optimise the processes. By being able to reduce wait times and load times, we can be more attractive as a shipper and get better rates on the spot market”
Torben Beyhoff, Head of Land Transport, thyssenkrupp Steel
STEP 4.
Apply the rules
Rules are crucial for dock scheduling success
Jan Rzehak, Director Business Consulting, explains that poor rule enforcement can cause a promising implementation to fail quickly. For example, one customer expected over 200 slot bookings per day but received only a few because carriers who booked slots and arrived on time received no preferential treatment compared to those who didn’t book, resulting in equal queue sizes.
Without rule-enforced benefits for timely bookings, carriers saw no advantage in using the system.
Maintain system credibility and effectiveness by offering premium service, like faster processing, for carriers who follow the booking system.
Encourage carrier collaboration by showing the benefits of dock scheduling, such as reduced waiting times and optimised processes.
This human aspect of collaboration improves efficiency, adoption, and compliance. Familiarity with dock scheduling solutions further facilitates smooth adoption and compliance.
Offer flexibility in booking preferred slots and assure efficient service for timely arrivals.
With in excess of 168,000 carriers active on the Transporeon platform, most carriers are already familiar with Time Slot Management – or already using it with another shipper customer (around 70% on average typically already use TSM). This means onboarding hurdles are very low.
“Time slot solutions can be fantastic and to the benefit of everybody involved. If the shipper keeps the system open and time slots are easily available, a carrier can pick the time slots they really need and want to have. That greatly reduces idle time or down time of trucks. At the end of the day, everyone in the industry can agree that we cannot do without these systems anymore.”
Winfried Netzer, Branch Manager, IntegreTrans
STEP 5.
Combine dock scheduling with Real-Time Visibility
Let’s explore a common real-life scenario from a shipping yard
A shipper in the paper industry has two carriers scheduled to arrive at the beginning of the day: Carrier A and Carrier B. Carrier A is scheduled to arrive respectively at 10:00, and carrier B is scheduled to arrive at 11:00.
Scheduled
Carriers are scheduled to arrive respectively at 10:00 (A) and 11:00 (B).
10:02
Carrier B arrives earlier.
Carrier A is missing.
10:02-10:15
The shipper is calling to carrier A to find out where the truck is at. Carrier A is not responding. The labour force is idling.
10:20
Carrier A calls back to the shipper and says that the truck will arrive in 5 minutes.
10:25
The shipper starts unloading Carrier B’s truck.
10:27
Carrier A finally arrives but now has to wait 15-20 minutes because the unloading of Carrier B is in the process.
Scheduled
Carriers are scheduled to arrive respectively at 10:00 (A) and 11:00 (B).
10:02
Carrier B arrives earlier.
Carrier A is missing.
10:02-10:15
The shipper is calling to carrier A to find out where the truck is at. Carrier A is not responding. The labour force is idling.
10:20
Carrier A calls back to the shipper and says that the truck will arrive in 5 minutes.
10:25
The shipper starts unloading Carrier B’s truck.
10:27
Carrier A finally arrives but now has to wait 15-20 minutes because the unloading of Carrier B is in the process.
“We’re now using real-time visibility data to tell our distribution centres where our vehicles are. With Transporeon, we have a real-time view of which deliveries will arrive and when. It also provides an option to add ETAs manually, to sequence them in order, allowing colleagues to be redistributed.”
Daniel Burgess, Lead Digital Development Manager, Tesco Primary Distribution
Real-time visibility integrated with dock scheduling serves to solve the scenario shown above. It provides accurate ETAs, helping shippers make informed decisions.
If the shipper has real-time visibility in their dock scheduling solution, he can identify early on that Carrier A will arrive later, at 10:32, and instruct their team to start unloading Carrier B earlier.
Transporeon’s Yard Arrival Monitor, which is part of our Real-Time Yard Management solution, allows you to seamlessly track the scheduled plans against actual operations in real-time.
It helps you identify discrepancies between the plan and reality, such as early or late arrivals.
With access to real-time updates on truck locations and estimated arrival times, logistics managers can make adjustments on the fly, ensuring that the schedule remains optimised and responsive to unforeseen changes.
1. Plan: allocate time slots.
2. Monitor the trucks in your yards.
4. Check: analyse and report KPIs
3. Spot deviations in your schedule.
STEP 6.
Harness the synergy of ETAs and ETDs
Having a clear overview of ETAs is critical for shippers, but having predictable ETDs (Estimated Time of Delivery) offers additional benefits for both carriers and shippers.
For carriers, if they expect drivers to be back on the road after two hours but end up waiting for five, their entire schedule is thrown off. This unpredictability forces carriers to scramble for alternatives, such as finding another truck or using a freight exchange platform to fulfil commitments. And that’s why reliable ETD predictability is so highly valued.
This is equally important for shippers managing outbound flows who need to inform customers about expected delivery times.
Incorporating ETAs and ETDs into a seamless process reduces idle times, improves resource utilisation and enhances overall efficiency.
In essence, connecting all elements of the supply chain – from the warehouse (walls) to the carriers (wheels) – ensures a smooth and efficient flow of goods with minimal disruptions and maximum predictability.
“We decided to adopt Time Slot Management in order to foster collaboration and balance inbound and outbound flows. With TSM [and Yard Arrival Monitor], we can monitor arrivals of trucks and different statuses of loading without physically being there. We can control this activity in our Mill plant from our headquarters. With data from Transporeon, we can monitor your yard KPIs and focus on data-driven yard optimisation. We also had good results in terms of reduction of waiting times.”
Ferdinando Citarella, Logistic Director, Burgo
How did the MI5 story end?
Thanks for reading so far. You may be curious about how the security agency addressed the spreadsheet issue mentioned in the introduction. It was reported that the intelligence agency destroyed all the material obtained from wrongly tapped numbers and fixed the technical issue by introducing a laborious manual check process for any future requests for communications data.
The good news is that, as a supply chain executive, you don’t have to rely on manual processes and spreadsheets any longer. Instead, you can use tools like Transporeon Time Slot Management, which is seamlessly integrated in the network-based Transporeon Platform.
Read on to discover how ArcelorMittal and Shell improved their yard efficiency with the help of our tools.
© 2024 Trimble Inc.