The process of checking trailers into warehouses or a yard traditionally has been a job for guards, clipboards, and Excel spreadsheets. Still, technologies streamlining and automating yard management are actively penetrating the industry. During FreightWaves’ recent F3 Virtual Experience, Gatego, a gate and yard management platform, demonstrated its user experience, seeking to remove the tedious work and inefficiencies of trailer check-ins while also offering end-to-end data visibility.
“It’s time to modernize, so we’ve created a solution,” said Adrian Garcia, founder, and CEO of Gatego.
How Gatego’s easy-to-use platform streamlines workflow
Gatego’s platform has an interface for both shippers and carriers that allows both parties to keep track of check-ins and yard inventory across multiple yards. By taking photographs and noting discrepancies, warehouse managers and guards can report issues and track the results of tire inspections.
When the truck arrives at the gate, the guard uses the app to photograph the trailer, the seal and enter other identifying data like the truck number. If the trailer is damaged, a mudflap is missing, or has cut along one side; the app allows the user to flag the damage in the photo before completing the check-in process.
From the administrative side of the software, shippers and carriers get a unified and comprehensive view of which trailers are loaded or empty, current yard capacity, details of trailer damage, KPIs, and the results of tire inspections.
“You can also filter through your locations and carriers,” said David Luper, account executive at Gatego. “Let’s say you’re dispatching, and you need to find an empty trailer in Dallas. On the yard screen, you’re going to see all your trailers — everything that’s available. When you filter through for Dallas and select a specific carrier, it will show you all the trailers corresponding to that carrier in Dallas. Here’s a trailer that’s been sitting for a little bit. You’ll see the left side, the right side, and then the inside of the trailer.”
Gatego saves customers thousands of dollars a month
One of Gatego’s customers, a dedicated carrier specializing in cross-border shipments from Mexico to the U.S., had tried a yard management system but called its capabilities “black and white” and not much different from using paper and pen.
“The other software didn’t allow photos or comments to hold the drivers accountable for leaving a mess,” the customer said in an interview with FreightWaves. “Using Gatego, we noticed a trailer had the axle damaged. We confirmed the damage in the check-in photo and used it as evidence. We immediately found the driver who delivered the trailer on Gatego, and we were able to keep them accountable for the repair. Gatego has saved us a lot of money as otherwise we would have had to fix it ourselves. Gatego is not just paying itself but saving us thousands of dollars every month. We didn’t know we needed this software.”
For a free trial and up-front pricing, without the pressure of long-term contracts, visit gatego.io.