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A queue of trucks at a plant gate rarely comes from a shortage of docks. The usual reason is that nobody plans arrivals: vehicles all turn up in the morning, the docks are jammed at seven and empty at eleven, and the vehicles waiting to get in block the internal roads. As long as a carrier can turn up ‘whenever it can’, adding docks only shifts the problem in time. The queue only clears with a combination of booked times, drivers checking themselves in and a text message calling them in.
Why adding docks does not help
A dock can only be used in the moment: an hour left unused at eleven does not carry over to seven in the morning. With unplanned arrivals the load is spread at random and usually bunches at the same times of day, because drivers set off early and want to be done before their break. Hence a situation that looks contradictory at first sight: average dock utilisation is low, yet there is a jam at the gate.
Booked times, kiosk check-in and a text message calling the driver in
The first element is the booking: every delivery has a time slot agreed in advance. A booking on its own does not keep track of anything, though. It does not tell you whether the driver has arrived or where they are waiting.
The second is reporting arrival without involving security. The driver checks in alone, at the kiosk at the gate. At twenty vehicles a day, talking to every driver at the gatehouse window quickly becomes a bottleneck.
The third element is the one most often left out, and it is the one that clears the jam: a notification that the driver may enter. A driver who does not know when they will get in has to stand where they can see the gate. A driver who will get a text can wait in a car park off site, and the queue disappears from the access road.
How it worked at a plant with three gates
A manufacturing plant in Poland has three entry gates and road delivery traffic: raw material deliveries and finished goods collections. Before the implementation, carriers arrived whenever it suited them. Trucks waiting to load and unload stood at the gate and on site, blocking the internal roads and entrances.
The plant introduced delivery booking with a rule that every delivery must have a time reserved in advance. Carriers set the times themselves, in a portal they reach through a browser. Drivers report their arrival at the kiosk at the gate and get permission to enter by text message.
Since then, the booking decides the order of handling. Under the rule the plant adopted, a vehicle without a booking does not come in, and a vehicle with a booking comes in when the plant is ready for it, with the driver finding out while still outside the gate. The ‘what time should I be there?’ questions moved from the security phone to the portal.
What bookings will not solve
Dock capacity depends on the infrastructure. If the site physically cannot take that many deliveries, bookings will spread them over time and show how many slots you are short.
Carrier punctuality is a matter for the commercial contract. The system supplies the data for that conversation: who failed to turn up, who arrived outside their slot and how often it happens.
Nor does TraxSystem block a vehicle without a booking on its own. It shows the operator that there is no reservation, and a person decides whether to let it in. An automatic block would stop an emergency vehicle or punish a driver for a typo in the registration number.
What a set-up like this costs
The implementation described runs the base system with the entry log and the booking module with the carrier portal and the kiosk. The size of the base depends on the number of gates and the booking module limit on the number of docks, so a plant with three gates and six docks fits the Extended base. The configurator on the pricing page will recalculate this set-up for a different number of gates and docks. Hardware such as the kiosk or cameras is priced separately.
Questions and answers
Do you need a number plate recognition camera to clear the queue?
No. A kiosk and text messages are enough. A camera shortens the moment of entry itself, but bookings work without it.
What about carriers who do not want to use the portal?
Someone at the plant can enter the booking for them. The portal moves that work to the carrier, but it is not compulsory.
Can we start with one gate?
Yes. The smallest base handles one gate, and more are added later. Extending it requires a new licence to be generated, so it has to be built into the schedule.
See also: ‘What time should I be there?’ calls: how to stop taking them · How to organise time slots at your loading docks · Vehicle entry control at a manufacturing plant: where to start