ness development at Inconso, a unit of
German logistics technology provider
Korber AG that sells yard management
systems (YMS).
The best YMS products allow truckers to
reduce time spent in the yard by pre-book-ing arrival and loading times, while also
giving shippers updates on truck arrival
times for scheduling and staging purposes,
Leesch adds. “Visibility is the key to bringing the two sides together,” he says.
REPUTATIONS MATTER
Turning to the hospitality part of the
equation, experts agree that a big part of
improving dock and yard management is
extending basic courtesies to drivers and
treating them with respect.
As simple as that might sound, many
facilities fail to meet even that basic standard, Dock411’s LeGrand says. He notes
that certain industry sectors have become
notorious among truckers for their treatment of drivers. “Google around, and
fair or not, the grocery industry is getting
a black eye,” LeGrand says. “[Drivers]
don’t want to go [to grocery DCs] because
detention times can be over four hours—
the ELD data backs that up. … So drivers
feel it’s cost-prohibitive to even go there.”
It’s not just lengthy detention times
that can earn a facility a bad rap. Another
common cause of driver discontent is
the failure to provide basic amenities,
LeGrand says, citing the example of a
facility that bans drivers from using a
bathroom during their visit because of
security regulations or health codes that
apply to food-processing operations.
But restoring a tarnished reputation
can be surprisingly simple, LeGrand says.
He cites the case of one Dock411 customer that had prohibited drivers from
exiting their vehicles because of safety
concerns about pedestrians wandering
the yard. It solved the problem by buying
a $100 picnic table from a big-box store
and setting it up under a tent canopy,
creating a makeshift break room that
gives drivers a place to safely get out and
stretch their legs. In another case, a DC
whose rules prohibited truckers and other
visitors from using bathrooms inside the
building solved the problem by installing
a portable toilet right at the guardhouse.
Not all problems are so easily
solved, of course. It’s much more
challenging to bring order to a cha-
otic yard than to install a picnic
table. But with today’s technology
tools—and maybe a portable toi-
let—shippers can boost their chanc-
es of securing the capacity they need
and facilitating a seamless flow of
freight through their facilities.
When that happens, everybody
wins. “Looking at the overall shipping community, time is money,”
LeGrand says. “At the dock, every
minute counts, and it impacts somebody’s bottom line.”
