DOCKMASTER

Dock Scheduling - The Challenge

Are you like most shippers and consignees who still use white boards to schedule? Wouldn't you like to capture your scheduling so you could benchmark performance?Wouldn't you like to get off the phone and gain some efficiency in the office? Wouldn't you like to measure carrier on-time performance and performance among similar shipping facilities? Wouldn't you like to gain efficiency and reduce congestion at your docks?

When it is vital to get that shipment out or that delivery in, will there be carriers out there to serve your needs? The trucking industry estimates it is losing approximately $1.6 billion a year waiting around docks to pick up or deliver cargo. One of the top reasons for driver turnover in the trucking industry is wasted time sitting at warehouse docks. For truckers who get paid by the mile, time is of the essence. And the truckers are not the only one losing. Lost productivity for truckers results in higher rates for shippers.

DockMaster - The CarrierPoint Solution

CarrierPoint's dock door scheduling tool, DockMaster, is a Web-based application that provides the real-time visibility necessary to make scheduling dock appointments easier and more accurate. Shippers can use the web to schedule pick-ups and deliveries by their selected carriers, routing them to a pre-assigned loading or unloading door. Truckload and less-than-truckload carriers can schedule dock appointments quickly and easily over the Web without having to make time-intensive phone calls. (Most shippers and consignees estimate their schedulers spend at least 40% of their time on the phone scheduling and managing appointments.) By using DockMaster, shippers and carriers can improve communication and reduce errors, improve labor planning and use reporting tools to measure performance.

Features

• Automatic or interactive scheduling (your choice)
• Efficient, real-time visibility and communication
• Customizable business rules
• Advance shipping notifications and proofs of delivery
• Cycle time and other types of performance reporting
• Configure an appointment book for any location in minutes based on that location's business rules
  • 2 doors or 200 doors
  • 4 hours per week day or 24 hours 7 days per week
• Allow carriers to schedule directly from their browser or require approval for the requested appointment
• Allow inter or intra company visibility of load status - a boon to customer self-service!
• Use scheduling as part of a comprehensive CarrierPoint solution, or use it as a stand-alone
• Use outbound and subsequent inbound scheduling to provide Advance Shipping Notification and Proof Of Delivery up and down the supply chain

Benefits

• Easy to use
• You can access it from anywhere you have an Internet connection
• Carriers: keep your drivers on the road and not waiting around at the docks
• Shippers: achieve labor cost savings and reduce administrative costs
• Gain efficiency and reduce congestion at the docks
• Improve communications with business partners
• Maximize the use of dock assets
• Improve labor planning

Benefits - Shippers and Retailers

• Allow core carriers to schedule the appropriate appointment time, on-line, after accepting a load tender with no interaction with the dispatcher
• By funneling scheduling to the internet tool, enforce compliance to load/discharge windows
• Provide for route optimization allowing carriers to schedule any number of stores consecutively based on continuously updated available appointment times
• Capture data to:
  • Benchmark load performance across shifts or locations
  • Track carrier on-time performance
  • Dispute demurrage bills
  • Compress your labor schedule and reduce labor standby time
  • Reduce or eliminate demurrage

Benefits - Carriers

• Can build a delivery route on line that best maximizes the use of their equipment while still adhering to the load requirements of the shipper and consignee
• Schedule single or multi-stop appointments without having to find contacts on the phone at each location, or at any location
• Have a written confirmation of their appointment times to resolve disputes at the door

Benefits - Logistics Providers

• Provide all of the above for fee services to groups of smaller customers without having to invest capital dollars in hardware, software, development
• Allow customers varying degrees of access to the system in order to maintain direct management control of the account
• Use dock scheduling and its ASN and POD capabilities to expand logistics management reach up and down the supply chain from the current customer base
• As an intermediary, provide streamlined processes to a carrier base to enhance your company's alternatives, and those of your customers, when capacity is in short supply