Kimberly-Clark Sees Positive Results With PINC Trailer Tracker System

The Yard Hound Locator application, utilized to track and locate tagged trailers within the yard, consists of an RFID interrogator built into PINC's Tracker appliance, which is mounted inside a yard truck (also known as a shunt truck) and used to reposition trailers in the yard. As the truck moves throughout the premises, it passes within range of each parked trailer's tag. Its Tracker appliance then collects that tag's ID, associating it with the location coordinates determined by its built-in GPS receiver.

Because the truck is in motion, the Tracker appliance also contains inertial sensors that measure such characteristics as the yard truck's acceleration and rotation. This data, along with the signal strength of the tag reads, is plugged into algorithms developed by PINC, to pinpoint each trailer's location.

Mike O'Shea

Tracker stores the trailer's location data, along with a time stamp, and transimts that information to PINC's Web-based software platform as soon as the appliance comes into range of one of the yard's Wi-Fi (802.11) access points. PINC's server collects data from the various yard trucks as they arrive, merges it with a map of the facility, and presents a real-time picture of yard activities.

Inside each yard truck, drivers employ the Yard Hound Director software, running on a touch-screen monitor, to receive orders regarding which trailers to pick up and where to take them. Based on the data collected from the Tracker appliance, the Director software guides the drivers to each trailer's exact location. Tracker also takes continual inventory as the yard trucks pass by all of the tagged trailers.

"K-C was definitely gaining value from the moment we starting tagging the trailers," Mingerink told attendees, adding that he doesn't believe end users need to have yards as massive as K-C's to benefit from the PINC solution. "You don't need a huge number of trailers."

In addition, the PINC system has allowed K-C to make more accurate driver staffing decisions, based on the visibility it has gained into where its yard trucks are located, as well as how often they move trailers during a given shift. Previously, Mingerink said, Beech Island managers relied on the recommendations of its third-party logistics company—which contracts out the yard truck drivers—to determine scheduling.

PINC Solutions has a number of other customers currently using its Yard Hound system as well, including home goods specialty retailer Cost Plus World Market (see Cost Plus World Market Finds RFID Sweet Spot in Yard Management).