Web Application
YardTrack
Providing real world results!
YardTrack
Process
YardTrack was born out of pure necessity. A simple way to track containers and trailers within a yard in order to be able to make the job of yard jockeys that much faster as they do not spend time looking for them. Let me break it doewn for you below.
The problem
I spent some time as a yard driver or yard jockey. Just so you understand the job is using commercial trucks specialized for retreiving them from the yard and parking them on doors for the warehouse to unload. The only problem this yard gets full, sometimes we have rows and rows of double and at times triple stacked trailers making it so hard to find anything, specially at night which was the shift I worked. So i got to thinking there has to be an easier way to do this.
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Making due with what we have
When the warehouse asks for a trailer they provide you three pieces of information. The trialer number, its current location and it's destination. Now when I say current loaction I mean they either tell you what bay door it is at by simply sayind Bay Door 50 for exaple, or if its in the yard it just says yard. No spot number, no approximate location, just yard. So when you get a move to put a trailer to a door you have to drive around looking for your trailer, and if you can't find it you have to walk the yard. This made the avergae move completion time about 15-20 minutes.
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Results that track
I started with a paper lists, making a listof trailers in the back that I could not see. This became outdated very quickly as there are other employees on the yard and outside drivers would also move things around so this did not work. So then I decided to use something that I could update. So I switched from written paper to Google Sheets. An online docuement that is live and can be shared with others. This proved very helpful. Taking average completion times from 15-20 minutes down to 3-8 minutes per move. A dramatic change in speed and ability to do the job much more effecient.
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The work ahead
While there is no finished version yet I am currently working on the final solution of YardTrack in which the goals are simple. Be able to easily input new trailers that arrive, be able to update trailer locations as they move within the yard and most importantly, make finding the trailers very easy. I look forward to being able to launch this project very soon with the hopes of helping with drivers and the warehouse cut down in time and imrpove effeciency.
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