Food distribution faces many logistical challenges.Exotrac’s Real Time Yard Management Solution (YMS) can help your business solve them.

 

Food Distribution Yard Management

Food and grocery companies face significant logistical challenges, such as the rapid movement of perishable products. Refrigerated vehicles need to optimize fuel consumption, which necessitates fluid movement into and out of the distribution environment. Timing is critical. Proactive planning and efficiency of all supply chain transactions requires real-time visibility throughout the supply chain. Our Food and Grocery clients obtain real-time alerts regarding critical issues potentially impacting perishable products including fuel consumption, time-on-property, refrigeration temperature and the status of each unit. Exotrac’s Real Time Yard Management Solution (YMS) achieves holistic benefits throughout the distribution process by seamlessly connecting all elements within the supply chain, ensuring speed-to-market of ‘dated’ products and improving shelf-life and profitability.

The yard operation becomes the conduit controlling the flow of product and the attendant data into the distribution campus and out to the stores with real-time visibility – allowing our Food and Grocery clients to proactively plan, organize and optimize their supply chain. The result is supply chain efficiency, cost reduction, reduction of perishable loss and high level customer experience at an economical price.

Our food and grocery customers realized:

  • Visibility and status of all trailers and containers within the processing campus.
  • Return on investment delivered in months rather than years.
  • No impact to the capital budget
  • Reduced bob-tail trailer moves.
  • Reduced labor expense.
  • Reduced perishable loss rate.
  • Reduced fuel consumption on refrigerated trailer fleet and yard tractors.
  • Higher inventory fill rates to grocery stores.
  • The ability to pre-plan door moves to optimize staffing and proximity.
  • An enhanced ability to cross-dock effectively.
  • Reduced overall handling costs.
  • Better yard utilization within the distribution campus.
  • Improved time-to-market.
  • Cloud-based technology that provides the ultimate in flexibility, requiring little or no corporate IT involvement.
  • A significant reduction of detention and demurrage fees.
  • Reduced error rates.
  • Improved carrier on-time efficiency.
  • Greater flexibility to adjust to changes in volume, seasonality, and customer expectations.
  • A yard operation that performs as a conduit, effectively connecting the Yard Management Solution with the TMS and WMS – eliminating the data visibility void in the supply chain.
  • Reductions in overall transportation spending.
  • A Web dashboard that provides instant access to data via computer, smart phone, tablet or any wireless device – allowing instant reaction to exception situations.
  • Report cards based upon Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), empowering both managers and executives to take immediate corrective action where necessary.
  • Improved visibility, transparency, accountability and communication throughout the supply chain with real-time data visibility.
Key Features of the Exotrac Real-Time Yard Management System
  • On demand dispatch move functionality for Yard Jockey operations.
  • FIFO (first-in-first-out) prioritization.
  • Know when orders are processed in real-time, improving compliance and inventory management.
  • Manage any type of shipment or load type including: prepaid, collect, LTL, TL, Container and parcel with exception tracking and reporting.
  • Expandable software design allows optimization of single or multiple site operations.
  • Seamless transition with corporate legacy systems, ERP, WMS, TMS and vendor supplier systems.
  • Real-time visibility of all assets, locations and transactions – 24/7/365.
  • Current processes are analyzed and reengineered to ensure optimum efficiency.
  • Utilization of the “local” terminology streamlines the training process and overall installation timeline by retaining as many points of familiarity as possible.
  • Flexible software platforms are 90% functional out of the box, with 10% tailored to operational needs.
  • Performance tracking and exception reporting on trailer arrival and departure, measuring carrier and drayage company compliance.
  • Dashboard metrics allow management to visualize yard activity and equipment placement, as well as detention and demurrage.
  • Know what is in each trailer or container, when it will arrive and what to do with it. when it arrives gives the ‘3PL’ team the optimum efficiency and improves the overall operational effectiveness.
  • The system is a verified management tool for managing vendor and supplier compliance accomplished through the automation of physical yard checks and simplified door plan management in gate and out gate, door cycle and transit between campus facilities in real-time.
  • Web portal allows customer, carrier, rail yard and port to view their respective trailer pool.
  • Key Performance Indicators analytics provide management reports necessary to drive process improvements.
Our customers are singing our praises

“ The Exotrac Team created a turnkey solution that reduced our company-owned trailer fleet by 50 while at the same time reducing our yard operation hours by 80 per week. We continue to achieve higher on-time arrivals from our vendors because of the reporting attributes of the Exotrac system. ”