Docks, be they traditional warehouses, manufacturing sites, retail stores, hospitals or convention centers, can be very complicated to manage. At a high level, it’s simply about getting product in and out of the warehouse and turning drivers around as quickly as possible. However, the shear relative volumes and the numerous variables in play can quickly turn your dock operations into a complicated logistics operation. What are the symptoms that something is amiss in your dock operations? Can you identify the direct costs associated? What possible solutions exist?
The most common stories we hear can be summarized as follows.
Granted that few companies are able to ventilate the true costs related to inefficient dock operations (other than overtime labour), the last thing you want to do is to underestimate them, including:
Whether you’re currently allowing drivers to arrive on a first come, first serve basis or whether you’re currently scheduling loads, the first root cause to analyze is the absence of a plan. If you talk to any experienced scheduler, they’ll tell you how they spread the deliveries or pick-ups by order type, product type, complexity of unloading/loading, etc. They may also treat LTL, FTL, containers, rail cars differently. They already have a basis for a plan in their mind.
For certain sites, spreading the loads out evenly across the day may be sufficient. Others will need to restrict one container load per period of time, or certain products (e.g., water, paper, cosmetics). In the world of logistics, a schedule cannot simply be a replica of a traditional calendar format. You’re not simply booking a generic time slot. There may be multiple dimensions you need to take into consideration. You need to make a list of all the factors and variables that influence the time to turnaround a truck and find a dock scheduling system that will accommodate these.
In a manual scheduling process, using a spreadsheet or paper calendar, the warehouse manager will have difficulty obtaining the data required to plan his labour count or even alert purchasing of an upcoming capacity issue at the warehouse. The challenge is intensified when you have more than one scheduler working on approving appointments across multiple sites. Businesses may ask the schedulers to enter appointment data in their WMS, ERP, TMS, providing some visibility but it will be restricted to the perspective offered by the given system. In other words, entering the PO numbers in the WMS with their respective quantities will not indicate how it is loaded (e.g., floor loaded vs. palletized) and therefore the visibility on the unload time or labour requirements is limited. Similarly, the TMS focuses on collect freight and will not provide a complete picture to include the prepaid freight and couriers, for instance. Loads that need to be staged is another great example. Which system will restrict the number of staged loads you can allow during a shift?
Therefore the ideal solution is to have a dock scheduling system that will integrate data with your other information systems, giving you the best of both worlds; an efficient planning tool with full visibility.
I recently met a retailer who offers a six hour delivery window to their suppliers. This makes sense if you’re looking at it from a perspective of store replenishment. I fully understand that the business’ priority is to ensure the product arrives on a given day, received as inventory so the picking can start and the store replenishment objectives be attained. This is a basic concept in retailing. However, it sure doesn’t help the receiving team. This created peak receiving periods that contributed to driver wait times, overtime labour and an augmented stress level for the personnel managing the docks.
Without losing site of the ultimate objective (i.e., on time store replenishment), the dock scheduling system can manage the delivery window and also optimize the dock operations. A dock scheduling system like C3 Reservations can, in addition to reading the expected delivery date (EDD), also prioritize appointment times by interpreting various PO and appointment fields, applying specific business rules and constraints. Whether the delivery window is a broad rule that applies to all products or is PO specific, managing it effectively will go a long way to improving the fluidity of your dock operations.
If your dock is a mess, you’re not alone. Independent of the size of your company or whether you’re already scheduling appointments or not, the absence of a plan, visibility and a dedicated system is usually the root cause of your pain.
The next step towards resolving the mess in your dock operations is to take inventory of the following points.