ITTOOLKIT [ IN PRACTICE ]
Yard Management: Grounds for Improvement
Depending on the amount of attention companies pay them, the yards outside warehouses and manufacturing plants can either be models of efficiency or a source of delays. A supportive yard management system (YMS) can make all the difference as Westrock Coffee Company has learned. Having gained a YMS during its acquisition of another company, Westrock continues to unlock impressive gains in efficiency, real-time visibility and operational control.
THE CUSTOMER Westrock Coffee Company is a U.S. manufacturer and supplier of private- label coffee, tea, flavors, extracts, and ingredients solutions. The company handles sourcing, roasting, product development, packaging, and distribution for retail, foodservice, convenience, and hospitality clientele. Headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, with offices in 10 countries, the company sources coffee and tea from 35 origin countries. THE PROVIDER Kaleris is a global supply chain execution and visibility software company providing cloud-based yard, transportation, and terminal management solutions. Founded in 2004, and formerly known as PINC, Kaleris is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.
wanted to eliminate the need for constant phone calls to coordinate moves. “We didn’t want our drivers on the phone,” he says.
When Westrock Coffee Company acquired S&D Coffee & Tea in February 2020, it inherited an important advantage. S&D had already implemented a yard management system (YMS) that continues to serve Westrock’s operations today. To understand the scope of the original challenge, one only needs to consult J.T. Hinson, who was the former logistics manager at S&D Coffee & Tea and is now Westrock Coffee Company’s director of freight logistics. He began evaluating the feasibility of a YMS as early as 2015. At the time, S&D relied on fairly manual processes. They functioned well enough, but as business surged in 2017 and 2018, the yard ballooned from 120- 130 trailers to roughly 400. The pressure mounted with it. “We needed visibility into the trailers and better workflow function for the drivers,” Hinson recalls. Safety concerns added another layer of urgency. With five locations spread across the county, company drivers were frequently on public roads, and Hinson
A YMS ultimately provided that safeguard. Warehouse teams could
enter movement requests directly into a portal, allowing drivers to see their next assignment on-screen once they completed the previous one without any phone usage required.
by: June Allan Corrigan
HELP AT HAND The decision to partner with
Kaleris, a provider of cloud-based yard, transportation, and terminal management solutions, ultimately hinged on reliable support. Hinson wanted to know whether he could reach a real person when it mattered. Having dealt with middle-of-the- night emergencies involving electronic logging devices—“An 8 a.m. problem at 2 a.m. is typically how it goes,” he says— responsiveness became a key consideration when evaluating a YMS provider.
January 2026 • Inbound Logistics 177
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