Cost Plus World Market Finds RFID Sweet Spot in Yard Management

Using the PINC system, the retailer says, has improved its DC yard efficiency and reduced costs by automating many yard-management processes that were previously performed manually. While the company declines to discuss the deployment with RFID Journal, nor to release information about the precise time or labor savings the Yard Hound system has provided, PINC Solutions' CEO, Aleks Göllü, says CPWM is seeing concrete benefits by taking advantage of the highest functionality Yard Hound offers.

According to Göllü, companies can choose to deploy a reader only at a yard's main entrance, to automate the process of noting which trailers have entered the yard, and when. The second level of functionality includes adding the Tracker appliance to yard trucks in order to monitor the location of tagged trailers on a map of the yard. The third level, which CPWM has deployed, enables yard managers to exchange text and graphic messages with truck drivers over Wi-Fi, by means of a PINC software module running on a mobile touch-screen computer inside the yard truck.

Each trailer is identified by an EPC Gen 2 passive RFID tag embedded in encased in a rugged housing and permanently mounted onto the trailer.

With this function, known as Yard Hound Director, CPWM yard managers can show drivers where they want each trailer placed by noting the desired location on the map. They can also use the map to request that a trailer be retrieved and brought to a specific dock bay. Drivers can tap the touch screen to confirm requests, and managers can ensure that the proper drivers move the correct trailers to their assigned locations by constantly updating the map view. If they see a yard truck heading in the wrong direction to pick up or drop off a trailer, they can send the driver an alert. Since all of these processes were previously done over radio and with a paper map, Göllü says, mistakes weren't caught until much later.

Göllü says another PINC customer has been able to eliminate one of the yard trucks it had leased, based on the visibility afforded by the PINC system. The company found that one yard truck, used more efficiently, met its needs. "When you consider the labor, gas, maintenance and leasing costs of that extra yard truck, that's savings of somewhere around $90,000 annually," he explains. "And if your company has green [carbon-reduction] initiatives, [downsizing a yard truck fleet] helps with that, too."

This same customer, Göllü adds, has also been able to reduce the number of manual yard checks—verification that all of the trailers are stored or docked where they are supposed to be—from six per day to just one. Such checks are conducted to audit the Web-based software, he says, adding that personnel spend 90 minutes on each manual check.

Göllü says another customer expects to reduce by 80 percent the late fees it typically pays for trailers that are kept inside its yards beyond their rental agreement. This customer, he notes, also hopes to reduce the number of empty trailers that sit inside the yard.