Barnes & Noble · 2 distribution centers, mapped from satellite
The Yard Network System, by FreightRoll.
You are opening 60 more stores in 2026. Every one runs through the same two gates.
You confirmed 60 new stores for 2026, with leases signed across ten states. That is real growth, and every new store pulls more books through the same two distribution centers, Monroe Township NJ and Reno NV. Most of that volume lands in a tight holiday window. At each DC the truck clears a gate we can map from orbit, not run. Our read is that when the peak hits, that wait backs trucks onto the road.
YardFlow is the Yard Network System, the software layer between your TMS and your WMS. Every store you open, every holiday peak you absorb, still runs through a gate, a yard, and a dock. We make both DCs turn that load fast, on one standard. Primo Brands has implemented the driver journey system wide, cut trailer turn times by 50%, and shipped about 5% more volume on the same dock-office headcount. The audit shows where the same gain sits in your network.
- The gapYour TMS runs the road, your WMS runs the building, nothing runs the yards.
- What we doOne digital standard for both DCs. EZ-Pass at the gate, air-traffic control for the trailers.
- The proofPrimo: about 5% more volume on flat headcount, turns cut 48 to 24, and 100% of the network committed.
- The payoffReduce turn times, gain 5% capacity per DC. Eliminate paper and detention expenses. No change to headcount.
Already live at scale · the Primo Brands network
The Yard Network System runs the yards behind these household brands. Live today, rolling to 100% of the network.
Using actual results from Primo Brands, we modeled the potential prize for Barnes & Noble.
Proven at Primo, modeled across the network
The problem
Both yards "do it their own way." That is not strategy. That is drift.
Walk Monroe Township and Reno and we would expect the same line: our yard is different.
In our experience it is not. Same trucks, same trailers, same moves. What differs is the workaround each DC improvised, hardened into a process nobody chose. Monroe alone runs 110 dock doors on 73.5 acres behind a single gated entry and a long internal drive. Cram a holiday spike through that one choke and trucks back up onto the road while a driver waits to find a door. Reno carries the West Coast on its own conventions. The 60 new 2026 stores feed off these same two yards, so every signed lease pushes more peak load through gates that already strain. Neither DC ever got a modern yard system. Our read is that both still improvise it.
Why now
The 2026 stores are signed. The yard that wastes a driver's day will cap how much they can sell.
The 60 new 2026 stores are confirmed, and each one pulls more volume through the same two DCs.
Most of that volume lands in a tight holiday window. Your yards are the cap on what those stores can stock. The freight cycle is turning too, and pricing power is swinging back to carriers as capacity tightens. The next spot market will punish shippers whose yards burn a driver's afternoon. Detention starts at hour two and runs $50 to $100 an hour, and carriers now pick their shippers. Every printed BOL, every forced check-in, every drop-and-hook instruction, every trailer a driver hunts down is added cost. Fix the yards and the capacity you could not see starts to surface, which is more loads out the same doors. At holiday peak a trailer your yard loses today is a shelf that runs empty this week.
The Yard Network System
A new layer of your stack, between the TMS and the WMS.
Every yard runs the same jobs, and the same people run them. The Yard Network System gives each of them one standard across every site. The driver checks in from their phone with flowDRIVER. The spotter moves the trailer while a cab camera maps the yard with flowTWIN. The dock coordinator assigns the door from flowYMS. The dock office signs the BOL with flowBOL. The executive watches every yard on flowNETWORK. Under all of it, machine vision reads the truck at the gate and an agent dispatches the next move. Think EZ-Pass at the gate and air-traffic control for your trailers.
The proof · already at scale
No company had ever put its whole yard network on one system. Primo just did.
The point is not faster trucks. It is realized production capacity: 5% more volume out the door on the same headcount, capacity those plants could not ship before.
Primo started with one layer: the driver journey. Text the truck instead of checking it in. Paper out of the gate. No more driver-to-dock-office handoff. Across the 24 sites where it went live, those yards shipped about 5% more volume than the sites without it, on the same dock-office headcount. That alone is why Primo committed all ~260 sites to the full Yard Network System, the first national shipper to standardize every yard on one protocol. The YMS is rolling now. Live at 10 plants, every production site by the end of Q3. The highest-volume campus is going fully automated end to end, on a trailer map that updates itself in real time. The 5% came from the lightest touch. The rest is still ahead. Barnes & Noble would be the first book retailer to put its whole yard network on one protocol.
“Your software enabled us to take on additional volume while remaining headcount neutral in the dock office. That was an integral part of our strategy, and it has been proven.”
Result measured on the driver-journey layer, before the YMS rollout. Primo is live at 10 plants today, every production site by the end of Q3.
What it touches
A new layer, not a new migration.
YardFlow runs in the yard and talks to the systems you already have. Your TMS and WMS stay the systems of record. Nobody is ripping anything out.
Built for enterprise infosec review. We connect over your standard API or EDI and scope to yard operations, not your ERP of record. Full integration and security review happen in the audit.
- In the yardflowDRIVER (driver app, no install) and flowGATE (camera gate) run on YardFlow. Nothing changes inside the DC.
- ReadsYour TMS appointments, over standard API or EDI.
- WritesGate and turn events back to your WMS, so dock and inventory stay current.
- IT liftOne connection per system. No rip-and-replace, no platform migration.
Your own audit
This is Barnes & Noble's own audit, not a generic benchmark. We mapped both DCs from satellite. Here is what the handoffs cost today, and where the standard lands first.
- 1 of 2
- Already run drop yardswhere the 48 to 24 minute drop-and-hook win lands
- 2 of 2
- Gated with a guard or boothflowGATE automates the check-in step
- 2 of 2
- Long entry drives where queues buildpre-arrival check-in keeps the queue off the road
See all 2 sitesOpen the audit →We are not asking for a pilot. We are asking for a conversation.
A 30-minute call, direct with Casey. We show you what we found on your network, you tell us straight where it fits. We will not tell you which site to start at. We have only seen your yards from orbit. You run them, so you already know which one goes first. If the call goes well, we talk about where that is. If the call does not land, you keep the analysis.
None of these times work? Email me at casey@freightroll.com or call or text me at 410-236-7434, and we’ll find one.
Casey Larkin, YardFlow. Jake, our founder, joins when it helps.
