Published on August 8, 2018 – Justus Bader, Consultant SAP Yard Logistics at Westernacher
Running a roll-on/roll-off terminal includes many different complex processes. To organise these processes smoothly and without error can be a real challenge. To improve this, SAP Yard Logistics can organise and track all the different objects, processes and activities on your terminal. This does not only increase efficiency, but also reduces organizational effort and any risk of error.
The main reason for the complexity of a roll-on/roll-off terminal is the huge number of vehicles, which results in the demand for a respecting organisation . Every single truck and car needs to be assigned to one or more parking spaces and drivers need to be informed where to move on the yard. Furthermore, the vehicles should be parked in optimal positions to reduce driving and waiting times for all processes. Added services like washing or maintenance, which are applied to some cars only, increase the planning effort. Because of these factors, paper-based processes leave a lot of room for improvement compared to an IT system like SAP Yard logistics.
To present the possibilities with SAP Yard Logistics for such a terminal, our example yard shows a car terminal for the import and export of cars. The terminal consists mainly of around 1000 car and 300 truck parking spaces. Additionally integrated are train tracks and loading stations, a quayside, truck check-in and -out areas and buildings for additional services such car cleaning.
Among other features, there is the Yard Cockpit (see picture above). The Yard Cockpit provides you with a real-time visualisation of your yard, allowing you to track all vehicles on and react to exceptions. Also, you can look up detailed information, e.g. departure date, of any vehicle with just one click. Another functionality is the Transportation Unit overview. With this function you can search for certain vehicles and find their parking spaces, next destination or other information.
The core business processes are the import or export of cars via the terminal. All information, e.g. number of cars or licence plate numbers, received from the carrier, is put into the system in advance to plan all processes in the most efficient way. For the export process, a truck arrives at the terminal with a given number of cars loaded. After the truck is registered at the check-in, the truck proceeds to the assigned loading space, the cars are unloaded and parked at the designated parking spaces which have been pre-planned in SAP Yard Logistics. Finally, the truck then leaves the terminal or moves to a special parking space in the case where a truck continues with an import process. The parking space for waiting trucks is shown below, in the background there is the export car parking and truck unloading area.
The corresponding import process starts with an empty truck being checked in or waiting on the yard. This then drives to the loading spaces next to the import car parking spaces. Here the truck is then loaded with designated cars. When the truck is fully loaded it moves to the check-out area and leaves the terminal.
The third important process is the import and export combining vessel transport. Here a vessel arrives at the quayside, the cars for importation are unloaded and then the cars for export are loaded onto the vessel.
With SAP Yard Logistics, your complete roll-on/roll-off terminal can be controlled and organized by one application. The key feature of SAP Yard Logistics is the management of present activities on your terminal.
But not only can you check your current terminal situation, with SAP Yard Logistics you can also plan for trains, trucks or vessels arriving in the future. With a Yard Order, the execution object in SAP Yard Logistics, you can enter all relevant information about future transport in the system, regardless of whether it is an arriving or departing transport. With a changeable Yard Order Template, the base information can be predefined and only unique information needs to be added for the transport.
Yard CAYA, Create – Yard Order
For an even more integrated supply chain, carriers can book and manage their own time slots for your terminal through the Carrier Portal. This way, your clients will be connected to your Yard Logistics system directly, so that their transport planning can be transformed into a Yard Request and later to a Yard Order for your terminal automatically.
Other than these named examples, SAP Yard Logistics brings many advantages to your roll-on/roll-off terminal. To name only one of them, Yard Logistics can also use a specially designed application on mobile devices. One example is the shunting app, developed by Westernacher. This app allows you to communicate the next car and destination to your employees on the terminal. This way the orders are always up to date, communication errors can be avoided and time is saved.
If you are interested in bringing your terminal to the next level of digitalisation or would like to have additional information about SAP Yard Logistics or Westernacher, please contact our experts.
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