Overview of Oracle Yard Management

Overview of Oracle Yard Management

To gain a competitive advantage, companies must achieve many goals: optimize inventory management, lower inventory levels, shorten order cycle times, provide better fill rates, and maximize the inventory flow both inside the warehouse and outside in the yard. Oracle Yard Management, a software product within the E-Business Suite, provides many advantages to help your company maximize the inventory flow in the yard of your manufacturing facility, warehouse, or distribution center.

Using Oracle Yard Management, you can define the entities required for yard operations and capture the transactions happening within the yard in real-time. You can view the location of trailers in the yard and enable yard employees to move trailers from parking to docks to fill orders in an efficient manner.

You need to run Oracle License Manager to enable this product.

Understanding Yards

A yard, by default, is an extension of the warehouse, and therefore plays a pivotal role in inventory management. Oracle Yard Management provides visibility into inventory in your yard and the equipment checking into and out of the yard for both inbound and outbound operations.

After a trailer is checked in, the trailer may need to be directed to an appointed dock door/empty dock door, or if none is available, to an empty parking space in the yard. The information channel needs to be handled in such a way the system automatically directs the trailer based on an appointment schedule. However, after the trailer is emptied or loaded, it may need to be moved into the yard area until the tractors are available for the onward destination to the customer or carrier location.

Users of Oracle Yard Management

Oracle Yard Management can accommodate multiple users who may have different responsibilities to manage and access the yard. These users may include:

• Warehouse managers/shift supervisors.

• Shipping and receiving managers.

• Yard supervisors.

• Jockeys/hostlers/switchers who move trailers.

• Security guards and gate clerks who check trailers into and out of the yard.

For information about assigning responsibilities to users, see Assigning Oracle Yard Management Responsibilities.

Benefits and Main Features of Oracle Yard Management

Oracle Yard Management provides the following benefits to help you better mange and improve your yard operations:

• Real-time Location and Status Information

  To ensure smooth yard operations, Oracle Yard Management provides real-time location and status information about trailers, parking slots, and dock doors.

• Support for Yard Transactions

  Oracle Yard Management enables you to manage yard transactions like yard check-ins, check-outs, sealing and unsealing operations, and trailer movements in the yard.

• Alerts/Notifications for Business Events

  Manage and send alerts/notifications during yard warehouse operations for check-in and yard move events as described in the following examples:

  • Check-ins

    --Late/early/on-time appointment for the equipment being checked in.

    --Seal validation at the time of the check-in.

    --Incorrect equipment for an already scheduled appointment.

  • Yard Scheduling

    --Appointment check if the equipment is in the yard.

    --Past due appointments for the equipment in the yard.

  • Yard Move

    --Past due appointments when yard move is initiated.

• Other related benefits

  • Schedule and maintain appointments for incoming and outgoing trailers.

  • Supports shipping and receiving material from the warehouses through the yard.

  • Ensures liability tracking by supporting cost and general ledger (GL) accounting for the trailer and its contents.

  • Visibility into Yard Inventory (for Oracle Inventory users)

    If you have licensed and installed Oracle Inventory, Oracle Yard Management enhances the Material Workbench (in Oracle Inventory) to provide information about yard inventory including the location of trailers/trucks and the quantity of the contained material. For example, if there is a shortage of material in the warehouse, the warehouse manager can use the Material Workbench to find the required material.