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A YMS, or yard management system, is software that manages vehicle traffic on an industrial site: from arrival at the gate, through dock assignment and handling, to departure. You will also see it described as yard or site traffic management software, but the abbreviation is what most people use.
A YMS picks up where transport management (TMS) ends and stops where the warehouse (WMS) begins. It covers the space that both of those systems leave out: the yard, the gate and the loading dock.
What a yard management system covers
A typical YMS covers:
- bookings and time slots, meaning reserved times at the loading docks,
- entry control: identifying the vehicle and the driver and deciding whether to let them in,
- dock assignment, by hand or by rules,
- traffic on site, meaning a record of movements between points,
- dwell time, measured from entry to exit,
- records and reports: who was here, when and for how long.
Some systems extend this scope to vehicle weighing, railway siding operations or access control for people, and then the line between a YMS and a broader site security system starts to blur.
How a YMS differs from a WMS and a TMS
Confusing these three systems is the most common source of misunderstanding when buying one.
| System | What it manages | Typical question |
|---|---|---|
| TMS (transport) | the route and the shipment | ‘where is the load?’ |
| YMS (yard) | the vehicle on site | ‘when will it come in, and to which dock?’ |
| WMS (warehouse) | the goods in the warehouse | ‘how much do we have in stock?’ |
A YMS does not know what is in the trailer. It knows that the trailer has arrived, has been at dock four for forty minutes and is due to leave before 14:00. Expecting a YMS to run your stock management ends in disappointment, and the reverse is just as true: a WMS will not clear the queue at the gate.
When a company needs a yard management system
A YMS makes sense when a site shows at least a few of these symptoms:
- vehicles wait at the gate and block the internal roads,
- the logistics team spends the day on ‘what time should I be there?’ calls,
- nobody knows how many vehicles are on site right now,
- the docks stand empty in the morning or the afternoon, while at peak times there are not enough of them,
- after an incident it is hard to reconstruct who was on site and when.
If the only problem is agreeing arrival times, a booking tool is enough, and it is cheaper and simpler. A full YMS pays off when the entry, the traffic on site and the record of events matter as well.
What not to expect from a YMS
A YMS does not increase dock capacity, because capacity comes from the infrastructure. A schedule spreads traffic over time and shows in figures how many slots you are short.
Stock levels and settlements stay in the WMS and the ERP; the YMS handles the point where the warehouse meets vehicle traffic.
Carrier discipline is a matter for the commercial contract. A YMS supplies the material for that conversation: who failed to turn up, who arrived outside their slot and how often. Implementation also needs an organisational decision on the site’s side, because carriers move to the portal when booked deliveries get priority, and simply switching the tool on will not make that happen.
TraxSystem as a yard management system
TraxSystem covers the YMS scope and extends it to the areas that usually sit next to the yard at Polish sites: access control for people, the weighbridge, the railway siding, site security and lone working, and the vehicle fleet. It consists of a base package and modules, so you pay for what you use.
The base package covers the entry log, gates and number plate recognition, and its price is set by the number of gates and the number of workstations in use at the same time. Delivery booking, access control, weighing, site security and health and safety are modules added to it separately. You can price the whole thing, the base with your chosen modules, yourself on the pricing page.
TraxSystem is not a WMS, and we have no plans to turn it into a warehouse system. Nor does it have ready-made connectors for SAP or Oracle: data exchange through the API is possible, but it is a separate project. The full scope of TraxSystem as a YMS, including implementation and questions about the cloud and integrations, is described on the yard management system page.
Questions and answers
Does a YMS need number plate recognition cameras?
No. Cameras speed up entry and close the exit record automatically, but the system also works with manual registration or self check-in at a kiosk.
Can a YMS be implemented at a single gate?
Yes, and that is usually the best way to start. Adding more gates is a matter of licence and hardware; changing the size of the licence means generating a new one, so it is planned in advance.
How long does implementation take?
One to three months, depending on the scope and the number of integrations.
See also: What is delivery booking · Time slot calendar vs yard management system: what is the difference · A plant with a railway siding: why road traffic systems don’t handle wagons