FourKites rolls out enhancements to Dynamic Yard offering

Earlier this week, Chicago-based FourKites, a provider of real-time tracking and visibility solutions across transportation modes and digital platforms, said it has released upgrades to its Dynamic Yard offering.

FourKites said its Dynamic Yard software offering enables shippers to proactively manage their facilities through real-time in-transit and in-yard freight data and analytics. And they added that through the connection of traditional, siloed yard management software with FourKites real-time supply chain data and predictive ETAs, shippers can cut down on demurrage and detention expenses, as well as optimize operations on a company-wide basis through their facilities.

Dynamic Yard was initially introduced by FourKites in August 2020, soon after acquiring the yard management service offerings from Denver-based TrackX Holdings Inc., an enterprise asset management company deploying SaaS-based solutions geared towards the tracking and managing of physical assets.

The company said that the new offerings for Dynamic Yard were developed in close collaboration with its customers and offer up what it called “unparalleled levels of customization and integration and captures every significant yard event,” including check in/out; trailer moves; arrival/departure from dock; and trailer updates.

The key enhancements, for Dynamic Yard, highlighted by FourKites, include:

• SKU-level visibility that offers granular insights to the contents of shipments for better inventory planning — an increasingly critical capability as order sizes decrease and volumes increase;
• Automated door scheduling in real time, giving warehouse management powerful new capabilities to optimize labor as inventories rise and warehouse labor runs thin;
• A customizable yard communication system, enabling automated emergency alerts and safety communication to yard operations teams in real time;
• Customization for every role and workflow that lets each organization use arrival/departure forms and build push reports/alerts for their unique operations; and
• Carrier Portal & Appointment Management empowers a customer's growing and evolving carrier base to meet expectations, manage their trailer pools and keep facilities staff nimble

“Dynamic Yard provides a streamlined, one-stop-solution that integrates with complementary supply chain systems, providing a critical level of visibility and workforce efficiency that today’s leading shippers urgently need,” said FourKites Chief Product Officer Priya Rajagopalan, in a statement. “This is cutting-edge engineering that enables the automation and optimization of one of the most complex and costly aspects of the modern supply chain—the yard— and creates new opportunities for productivity and agility.”

FourKites also noted that these upgrades were developed in direct response to the massive labor shortage plaguing warehouses and the transportation sector. And it added that the latest enhancements, built atop a state-of-the-art microservices architecture, enable end-to-end visibility and automation, streamlining nearly every facet of a facility's operations and offering unparalleled opportunities for integration and customization.

As previously reported by LM, when FourKites acquired the yard management service offerings from TrackX, FourKites said the acquisition would enable it to develop a new supply chain visibility offering focused on extending real-time visibility into the yard, with TrackX’s Yard Management, Dock Management, and Gate Control solutions, which are the key components of the acquisition. These solutions, according to FourKites, are “are highly scalable, serving the smallest facilities up to multiple enterprise locations…[and] are hardware-agnostic and integrate seamlessly with ERP and WMS systems, as well as RFID and IoT sensors.”

What’s more, FourKites said that this acquisition would create a first of its kind offering through the integration of FourKites real-time logistics data and predictive ETAs and TrackX’s yard management offerings, which will enable enterprises to proactively manage yards and warehouses that are based on real-time signals from both trucks in-transit and trucks on-site.

FourKites CEO Matthew Elenjickal told LM in April 2020 that the impetus for FourKites to acquire this business from TrackX stemmed from a need to extend visibility beyond in-transit to tractors and trailers waiting to be unloaded.

“It was the next logical step and something we knew our customers would benefit from,” he said. “As more and more IOT devices are being introduced into the yard for managing the gate, dock and trailer moves, it was a natural extension for FourKites to play a role in the IOT space to collect real-time data from the yard IOT devices and expand visibility from in-transit to the yard. We also saw a need for the yard to be brought onto the network. Current yard management solutions are mostly on-prem, single tenant applications. There's an industry trend where more and more shippers, brokers and mega-carriers are adopting drop trailers. But to manage a drop trailer program more effectively, you need a multi-tenant solution that manages visibility across multiple yards. Given the density we have with our shipper/carrier partners, we knew we were in the best position to bring it to market, and that's what drove the deal.” 

What’s more, he added that FourKites had been looking for ways to solve this industry challenge for more than a year, evaluating whether it should build this technology internally versus acquiring a solution, with the company ultimately deciding to acquire the domain expertise so that it could quickly bring this solution to market and benefit its customers.