In any area of logistics and supply chain, throughput is one of the most critical metrics to gauge performance and capabilities. It’s the number of units processed within a given time frame, indicating how operations are tracking against productivity goals.
In yard operations, throughput tracks the number of vehicles and loads that are processed into and out of a manufacturing or distribution facility. If a business can’t keep the flow of goods moving fast enough, backups result and quickly affect upstream and downstream logistics.
This points up the need to apply technology to optimize yard operations and prevent a costly ripple effect that delays orders and upsets customers. In an era of heightened expectations for rapid fulfillment and tighter delivery windows, the need is even more acute.
In this article, we’ll examine the concept of yard throughput, issues that can slow it down, and strategies for optimizing yard flow.
Understanding Yard Operations
Yard operations encompass every activity from the gate to the docks and across exterior lots and travel paths at a plant or warehouse. This includes gate security and access control, yard inventory and audits, and coordination and scheduling of dock trips.
Consider a busy 250,000-square-foot e-commerce fulfillment center with a throughput of 5,000 outbound orders per day, utilizing its own transportation assets plus third-party carriers. This amount of activity is generating hundreds of truck trips per day, both into and out of the facility.
The yard operations team has to orchestrate the movement of incoming trucks to available bays and optimize asset use (trucks, trailers, and chassis). Having third-party carriers adds a degree of variability to scheduling and capacity.
All aspects of people, processes, and technology are in play. Data needs to be shared between yard operations, fulfillment, and transportation teams. Managers match production to available trucking capacity, determine yard asset needs, and project inbound/outbound volume. The goal is a smooth flow that minimizes delays and maintains throughput. But fluctuations in demand and transportation capacity can increase complexity yet again.
Challenges to yard throughput include congestion, limited visibility, and inefficiency. Poor scheduling and unbalanced inbound/outbound traffic lead to delays. A lack of visibility into yard operations prevents real-time tracking of assets and complicates decision-making.
Mismanaged trailer movements, underutilized resources, and manual processes also put a crimp in productivity and throughput. This increases dwell times, raises costs, and causes missed delivery windows. Technology integration, streamlined workflows, and improved communication are part of the solution, maximizing throughput by maintaining flow.
Key Metrics in Yard Throughput
Some key ways to track throughput through yard management include:
Time per truck movement: The time it takes for a truck to complete a specific operation in the yard, such as check-in, loading/unloading, or exiting. Reducing this time minimizes bottlenecks, increasing yard efficiency and throughput and ensuring on-time deliveries.
Yard capacity utilization: The percentage of the yard’s total capacity actively in use, including the number of trailers, containers, or other assets the yard is handling versus its maximum capacity. Optimal utilization ensures the yard is neither overcrowded nor underused, leading to inefficiency. High utilization and smooth operations contribute to consistent throughput.
Dwell time: The total time a truck, trailer, or container spends in the yard, waiting for gate clearance, unloading, inspection, or dispatch. Excessive dwell time reduces throughput, causing congestion. Monitoring and minimizing dwell time improves yard flow, cuts costs, and reduces delays, contributing to supply chain continuity.
Strategies for Optimizing Yard Throughput
Yard management system (YMS) technology has been in place for about 30 years, and it has proven to be a huge boost to operational efficiency. It tracks yard assets and inbound and outbound shipments, schedules bay use, and handles gate access control. However, most do not have a real-time view of all yard assets and inbound/outbound logistics.
Next-generation yard vision systems leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, analyzing real-time data through camera feeds to augment a legacy YMS. This allows gains in throughput capacity by quickly identifying potential bottlenecks throughout the yard.
Load planning and shipment sequencing is improved through analytics on vehicle capacity, delivery schedules, and transportation constraints. Greater visibility into routes and available capacity drives better synchronization of yard operations with inbound/outbound logistics.
Data-Driven Decision Making
All of this is aided by integrating yard technology (YMS and vision systems) with TMS (routing and scheduling) and WMS (fulfillment and inventory). The ability to gather and analyze data from all three sources becomes a powerful tool in optimizing operations.
By analyzing data from all three sources, companies can create a synchronized ecosystem that optimizes operations across the yard, transportation, and warehousing. It improves workflow efficiency and yard throughput. It also enhances decision-making across by providing data-driven insights that ensure alignment and efficiency.
AI-powered yard vision systems provide real-time visibility and insights through tracking truck and trailer movements, asset locations, and overall yard activity. Through integration with YMS, the system identifies potential congestion at loading docks or excessive trailer dwell times.
This also informs delivery schedules, allowing for dynamic route adjustments of private fleets through the TMS to avoid delays. Data such as entry/exit time stamps helps optimize driver schedules and reduce idle time.
For companies using third-party carriers, yard vision systems can detect which trailers are ready for pickup and which docks are occupied or delayed. This information allows the YMS to dynamically allocate yard resources, avoiding congestion and making dock turnover more efficient for inbound carriers.
Streamlined Gate Management
Gate security/clearance and access control is a critical piece of yard throughput. If the process is inefficient, the gate can quickly become a chokepoint, throwing off inbound and outbound delivery schedules.
The use of AI and ML has also led to significant enhancements in vehicle flow and gate operations. AI, by tapping into ML algorithms, processes real-time data from yard cameras. Then through advanced optical character recognition (OCR), dozens of identifying vehicle and asset characteristics are analyzed in a split second, speeding up verification and clearance.
Scheduling appointments for truck arrivals is crucial for distributing traffic evenly throughout the day. By allocating specific time slots for each truck, yard managers can avoid the issue of too many trucks arriving simultaneously. This approach allows for a smooth and continuous flow of vehicles, reducing bottlenecks and improving overall yard efficiency.
When appointment systems are integrated with real-time data analytics, they can predict peak traffic periods and adjust schedules accordingly. For example, if unexpected delays occur or if there is a surge in truck arrivals, the system can dynamically reallocate time slots to balance the load across the day, preventing congestion and optimizing the use of gate and yard resources.
Dock and Slot Scheduling
Having a smooth process for moving assets into and out of parking slots and loading docks of course has a huge impact on yard throughput. This is another area where technology is being applied to bring greater efficiency.
When an AI-enabled YMS can apply automation to dock and slot scheduling processes, it has several advantages. For one thing, it makes trailer assignments more efficient and reduces dwell time. The system analyzes historical data and real-time inputs to predict peak periods, proactively assigning docks and slots to prevent backups.
Automation lets managers allocate yard jockeys, equipment such as yard trucks, and other staff more effectively, so resources are always directed to high-priority activities. This reduces idle time and increases utilization rates. The system can also dynamically adjust dock and slot schedules to accommodate delays, cancellations, or unexpected changes in freight volume, minimizing the impact of disruptions.
Other Innovations Impacting Yard Throughput
Automated yard trucks are another way that companies are looking to gain efficiency and improve yard throughput. Outrider and ISEE, for example, have developed technology that allows yard trucks to automatically couple and decouple tractors and trailers, a labor-intensive task that can also be dangerous. Their systems also allow yard trucks to autonomously maneuver trailers between park slots and docks.
While digital twins are increasingly being used to simulate and optimize warehouse layouts and operations, the potential is there for use in yard layouts as well. Virtual replicas of the yard would allow managers to experiment with different configurations, such as traffic flows, to determine the most efficient design. The technology is already being applied in rail yards and port yards.
A Tech Approach to Efficient Yard Operations
Optimizing yard throughput is crucial for maintaining efficient logistics. It involves tracking and managing the flow of vehicles, trailers, and containers to reduce delays and maximize productivity. A YMS integrated with an AI-powered vision system can improve throughput through real-time tracking, optimized slot assignments, and automated gate security.
Technologies such as automated yard trucks and advanced scheduling systems can reduce dwell time, streamline dock assignments, and enhance decision-making. Leveraging data analytics allows businesses to continuously adjust and improve throughput to reduce costly delays.
EAIGLE, a pioneer in AI-driven yard logistics, has developed an innovative platform to manage yard operations. It seamlessly bridges the gap between TMS and WMS while complementing any existing YMS.
To learn more about how EAIGLE can optimize your yard and gate operations, request a demo today.