Business Case for Yard Management Solution

A yard is the critical interchange point between manufacturing, distribution and transportation. Failures in yard operations can have a costly ripple effect across the systems they support. Problems such as line shutdowns, theft, late deliveries, high demurrage costs, trailer shortages, and spoiled cargo are just a few of the problems that can result from yard failures. Most businesses addresses these problems through manual methods such as performing routine yard checks, logging information about arriving and departing trailers at the gate, and recording each trailer move within the yard. Because yard operations are fluid, having up-to-the-minute location and status information about yard assets is essential to ensure smooth operations. Manual processes lend themselves to data entry errors and tend to be untimely. To compensate for unreliable information, companies typically keep a buffer stock of yard equipment on hand to prevent equipment shortages. This in turn, leads to greater yard congestion, higher equipment utilization, and higher labor expenses associated with managing more equipment.

All these facts prove the need for an automated yard management system wherein most processes which are now done manually are automated. The hardware infrastructure requirements of such a system can be satisfied by a good RTLS. The efficiency of the yard management solution lies in the YMS used for the purpose. This report gives a snapshot of the best technologies that can be used to aid in yard management. The market prospects of YMS are promising as presented in the later part of the report with 51% of the target population still using conventional methods of yard management. The report then details the business functionalities of the proposed yard management