Yard Manager
 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Product Review

 

April, 2003

 
 

 


GENERAL PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

 

1. System Overview

 

Purpose

 

The purpose of Yard Manger is to provide the dispatcher an automated tool that replaces the magnetic board or variation thereof to:

 

·         Maintain an inventory of trailers and tractors for ease of shift change updates

·         Provide historical information about the movement of the trailers and tractors

·         Provides status information on all the gates in the warehouse/cross dock

·         Allow ASCII or flat file transfer of information to payroll, driver productivity systems, or reporting systems that require asset utilization data

·         Eliminate the numerous spreadsheets maintained in a typical transportation environment with one database that can be the only source for resource tracking

 

Functional Activities

 

·         Finding a Trailer

·         Updating a Trailer

·         Confirming the update

·         Bobtail Tractor

·         View History

·         RDA (Recorded Delay Activity)

·         Edit Trailers

·         Edit Tractors

·         Edit Yard Locations

·         Edit Dock Locations

·         Edit Gates

·         Edit Drivers

·         Edit Freight Status

·         Edit Owners

·         Edit Out of Service Reasons

·         Rental and lease equipment tracking

               

 

 

 

2. Working with the System

 

2.1 Yard Management

 

For yard management, most daily work on the system is done in the Yard Console screen. This console provides summary information on all the different key objects/data elements required by the dispatcher.  The information is distributed into logical tabs with buttons for making changes to any object/data element and run required queries.  The console also provides the ability to move

trailers from location to location, and associate them with tractors and drivers.

 


 

 

 

 


Current Status and History

 

The current status of all the different equipment in the system is maintained for quick access. In addition, the history of status changes is accumulated for easy retrieval.  Yard Manager automatically maintains this information. The data collected for a trailer includes

 

Date of the activity

Time of the activity

Route Status (dropped, en route, or out of service)

Trailer Status (empty, racks or freight)

Freight Status (the types of customer freight that may be carried)

Location/Destination

Tractor

Driver

Out of Service (cause if the trailer is out of service)

 

 

Tables

 

There are a number of supporting tables related to yard management in the system, which may need information added, removed, or changed from time to time. This is accomplished through the Add, Remove, and Edit features supported by the application.  On each tab of the Yard Management Console, buttons are provided to add/remove an object corresponding to that tab.  Double clicking on any item in the list presented in the tab enables the user to modify any attribute corresponding to that item.  The primary data elements for yard management are:

 

·         Drivers

·         Freight Status

·         Owners

·         Out of Service Causes

·         Rentals

·         Tractors

·         Trailers

·         Yard Locations.

·         RDA tables – worksheet, Ops Managers, Plants and Problem list.

 

 

Queries

 

The primary queries supported help dispatcher retrieve location and status information on any Trailer.  Further, the user will be able to retrieve a history of the moves made by a particular trailer.  Having the visibility to available trailers in the yard will help the dispatcher plan for rentals.  In addition to querying trailers by location, the dispatcher could also run a sub-query on the trailers in the yard to determine how many of them are loaded or empty.

 


 

 


2.2 Dock Management

 

For Dock Management, most daily work on the system is done in the Dock Console screen. This console provides summary information on all the different key objects/data elements required by the dock/warehouse manager.  The information is distributed into logical tabs with buttons for making changes to any object/data element and run required queries.  The console also provides the ability to change status of dock gates.

 

Tables

 

Dock Console provides a user interface similar to that of Yard Console.  The supporting tables for dock management are the following.

 

·         Dock Locations

·         Gates

 

Queries

 

The primary queries supported help dock manager retrieve status information on any Gate in the dock.  Further, the user will be able to retrieve a history of the activity at a particular Gate.  Having the visibility to available gates in the dock will help the dock manager schedule staging, loading and unloading of freight

 

 


 

 

 


3. Reports

 

Yard Manger uses industry standard report writer, Crystal Reports.  Following are some of the


reports available in the application.


 

 

 


·         Yard Summary Report

·         Empty Trailer Report

·         Out of Service Trailers Report

·         Enroute Trailers Report

·        Rentals Report

 

The reports can be requested for a specific yard location or for all yard locations. Each of the reports is generated by accessing the Reports menu.  Most of the reports are sorted by location. Each of the reports can be generated based on start and end dates.