YARD MANAGEMENT
technologyreview
In the market for a
must-have
features in a YMS 5
yard management
system? Here are five
features to look for.
DO YOU HAVE A TRAILER LOGJAM OUTSIDE
your distribution center that’s slowing down
operations? Are you using the trailers parked in
your yard for overflow storage? Are you unable
to quickly pinpoint which trailer has the goods
that need to be unloaded right away to fill an
urgent order?
If you answered yes to any of these questions,
then it’s time to consider buying a yard management system (YMS). A yard management system is a type of software that as its name
implies, helps users manage the trailers outside
the distribution center.
“A basic YMS tells you where you can find
trailers in the yard so that the ‘shunter’ can move
the trailer to the assigned dock door without
having to manually search the yard,” explains
Marc Wulfraat, president of consulting compa-
ny MWPVL International Inc. “This is the
equivalent of an inventory control system in
that it tells you where the trailer was placed in
the past.”
As for who offers this type of software, there
are a number of sources. Most of the major ven-
dors of warehouse management systems
(WMS) offer YMS as an add-on module. For
instance, RedPrairie, Manhattan Associates, and
HighJump all offer YMS solutions that work
with their WMS offerings. Yard management
systems are also available from specialty vendors
like C3 Solutions and Yardview, as well as
Exotrac, which offers a cloud-based version.
There are also vendors, such as Pinc Solutions,
that use location technology to provide up-to-
