Outside is your warehouse too.
Inside, every location gets posted. Outside, a trailer stands somewhere in the yard and the only one who knows that is the person who put it there. Whoever looks for it drives a lap. And how long something has been standing, nobody knows until a bill arrives. In STOCKflow a yard is simply a map with zones, just like a building.
We start with one yard or one zone and measure the time searching costs you now.
Sound familiar?
These situations come back at distribution centers, transport companies and anyone with more outdoor space than overview.
- Finding a trailer in the yard costs a lap or a phone call.
- Nobody knows how long this container has been here.
- Nothing is recorded at the gate about what goes in or out.
- The yard does have bays, but that layout is nowhere on record.
- Carriers and packaging outside drop out of sight until the yearly count.
What it costs
What searching in the yard costs
Searches per day
Minutes per search
Working days per year
Per year
322 hours
Calculated with euros per hour, and with the share of the theoretical gain you actually achieve:
- Conservative
- 129 hours5,796 euros per year
- Expected
- 193 hours8,694 euros per year
- Potential
- 258 hours11,592 euros per year
Worked example based onsearching for something in the yard twelve times a day, seven minutes each time, over 230 working days. Only the searching itself, so without the waiting time of a driver standing by and without the dwell time you do not charge on. Not a measurement at a customer. The numbers are adjustable: put your own situation in and the outcome follows along.
How outside works just like inside
The steps are the same as for a building. What is different are the distances and the weather, and that decides the choice of label and read point.
1 / Lay the yard out as a map
Bays and zones get a name, the way racking has one inside. Without that layout there is no location to hang anything on, and then it stays a search.
2 / Label what stands outside
A tag that takes the weather, on the trailer, the container or the carrier. With large items and large distances that is a different label than inside.
3 / A read point at the gate
Whatever comes on and off the yard is read at the passage. That gives you the arrival, and with it the dwell time.
What this does and what it does not do
What this does and what it does not do
Wel
- Record zones in the yard, just like locations in a building
- See what is outside right now and in which zone
- Track the dwell time: since when has this been here
- Register at the gate what goes on or off
- Include carriers and packaging outside in the same count as inside
Niet
- Dock planning or time slots: that is planning and this is registration
- Assigning a dock to a trip, or checking drivers in
- Transport planning or route optimization
- Camera footage or license plate recognition
The line is registration against planning, and it is a hard one. We tell you what is there and since when. Anyone who wants time slots and dock appointments on top of that needs a planning system, and that is a different product.
What changes in practice
The trailer without driving a lap
You look up which zone it is in and drive there. No lap around the yard and no phone call.Dwell time you can charge on
Since when has this been here. Almost nobody has that number, and it is often money left lying.The gate records the arrival
Whatever comes on and off the yard is read. Arrival time without anyone writing it down.Outside in the same count
Carriers and packaging in the yard count along with the rest, instead of only on the yearly round.
What this looks like in your operation
The same solution lands differently on a production floor than in a warehouse. Pick your own situation and you will see what changes for you, and what a Proof of Value measures there.
How we prove it: a small, paid Proof of Value
We lay out and label one yard or one zone, and after that we measure how much time the searching still costs. The dwell time rolls out as a second result, and almost nobody has that number.
Scope
- One yard or one zone, with a bay layout on paper
- Temporary tags on one type of item: trailers, containers or carriers
- One read point at the gate, or a handheld for a round
- Baseline measurement: how often and how long is there searching now
- Tracking the dwell time per item during the measurement
Go or no-go
After the measurement you know how much search time goes out and how long things really stay. If the searching turns out to be modest, that is a successful measurement: then your problem sits in the planning and not in the registration, and you have not done a rollout.
What you are probably thinking
RFID does not read over that kind of distance, does it?
In an open yard you get much more range with the right tag and antenna than inside, because there is less in the way. What is achievable in your situation we measure before anything is bought; that is exactly what the test day is for.
Our trailers are metal.
That is the normal situation outside, and there are on-metal tags and hard tags for it. They have a spacer and are built to sit on steel. Which kind fits depends on the placement on the item.
We already have a barrier with license plate registration.
Then you know who came in. What you do not know is what was hooked to the trailer and where it stands now. Those two complement each other; we are not replacing your barrier.