Yard Spot Case Study
Container Yard Visibility Solution
Integrated Tools to Increase Throughput and Efficiencies
Problem
Service Transfer, Inc. (STI) had seen its business spike. The trucking and drayage provider serving ports on the U.S. East Coast was in high demand as container imports surged in 2021. At its facility in Chesapeake, Virginia, the number of containers in its yard reached previously unthought levels. The location, made up of four separate yards and almost 16 acres, was bursting at the seams.
High volumes posed several problems that threatened STI’s competitive position and risked losing market share.
Shuttle and Truck Drivers
Trucks could not easily maneuver within the yard. In a fast-changing yard with little excess room, the trucks would waste time navigating their way through the yard.
Operation Managers
Containers were getting lost and the operations team needed greater container yard visibility as the velocity of trucks and cargo accelerated faster than their systems could manage.
Truck Drivers
Drivers were frustrated by imprecise directions on where to drop and pick up containers. Due to poor container yard visibility, containers were taking too long to find, and one poorly dropped container could block access to many others.
Accounting
Reconciling the movement of containers in and out of the yards was too slow. Slow reconciliation put STI at risk of per diem fees.
Yard Operations
Yard checks were taking too long. Yard checks using pen and paper or a laptop with a spreadsheet consumed the morning, leaving dispatch in the dark.
STI needed container yard visibility, data management and controls, and importantly a faster and automated yard check process.
Solution
Yard Spot layers multiple types and sources of data into a common operating picture. Yard Spot combines location data, GPS and ELD systems with operational data from terminal management systems and any other data source. Yard Spot maps all this information into an easy to navigate and mobile-ready application. It provides a simple way to capture the geolocation of intermodal containers using a mobile phone. The ID, date, time and position is pushed to any enterprise ledger, like an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Transportation Management System (TMS), or even a spreadsheet. The software reads container numbers and marks the geoposition, transmitting them to Yard Spot to map for container yard visibility.
Results
Decreased Truck Turn-Times
4-6x Faster
Drivers are able to find a container in about 10 minutes, a significant reduction from the previous 45-60 minutes. A common operating picture and accurate container yard visibility keep trucks moving and create greater effective capacity through increased throughput.
3x
Faster
Yard checks are now completed in less than 1 hour when previously they took 3 hours, covering about 275 containers daily at a 98% accuracy rate.
Less Administrative Time & More Timely Data
3h/day
Saved
Each day office personnel save about 3 hours because of the combined Yard Spot-SiteTrax solution. This is equivalent to one-third of an FTE.
Common Operating Picture for All
100%
Anyone can login to see the status of containers. Plus, automated reporting using integrated data in Yard Spot keeps everyone on the same page.