Wireless solutions provider WhereNet Corp., a Zebra Technologies company, announced this week that Performance Team, a logistics provider for major retailers and manufacturers, has expanded use of the WhereNet yard management system (YMS) at its South Gate, CA and Seattle, WA distribution facilities. The facilities serve the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach in California and Seattle/Tacoma in Washington. With this recent expansion, the WhereSoft Yard system now manages more than 350,000 twenty-foot-equivalency (TEU) unit marine shipping containers annually, according to WhereNet.
"WhereNet plays a critical role in improving the efficiency of our transload operations as we continue to move an ever-increasing amount of freight for several of the country's largest retailers," said Charles Kerr, senior operations manager for Performance Team. "The intelligence of WhereSoft Yard, combined with specific business rules that we enter into the system, allows us to automate more than 90% of our dock door transactions. The YMS helps us reduce labor costs and increase productivity and throughput -- proven benefits that we expect will lead to a complete return on investment in less than one year."
Featuring user-defined business rules to automate work flow in medium-to-large yards, WhereSoft Yard is designed to serve as an advanced planning and execution system. Depending on the volume and velocity of the yard operation, the solution can be used with or without WhereNet's ISO 24730 and IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi)-based real-time locating system technology, according to the company.
WhereSoft Yard was developed to deliver a number of benefits, including increased productivity for equipment control personnel, yard drivers, and warehouse personnel;
increased yard velocity and capacity; improved equipment utilization and door turns; reduced driver time on site; decreased manual yard checks; more effective onsite equipment management; and better customer satisfaction through more timely deliveries.
"In order to efficiently operate high-volume, high-velocity facilities for the world's largest retailers, transloaders are relying on WhereNet to reduce risk by removing the potential for human error as much as possible," Steve Raymond, vp of product marketing for
WhereNet.
