Prepared for FedEx · 30 US hubs audited · one network standard
The Yard Network System, by FreightRoll.
A robot sort at Memphis still waits on the yard. YardFlow is the network layer that fills the gap.
You filed Project Hercules, a 1.6 million square foot automated sort center at the Memphis World Hub. That sort can read and route more parcels an hour than the yard around it can stage. The one place that flow still goes dark is the hub yard. The trailer your next sort is waiting on has to be found first, and our read is that finding it is the slow step.
YardFlow is the Yard Network System, the software layer between your TMS and your WMS. It makes every trailer legible at every hub, so the right one hits the right door before the sort. At Primo, drop-and-hook turns fell from 48 minutes to 24, on flat headcount.
- 48 to 24 min
- drop-and-hook turn, measured at Primo
- 29
- US hubs audited from satellite
- Flat headcount
- no capex, no new hires
- The gapYour TMS runs the road, your WMS runs the building, nothing runs the hub yards.
- What it doesEZ-Pass at the gate, air-traffic control for trailers. The right trailer at the right door.
- The proofPrimo: turns cut 48 to 24 min on flat headcount, 100% of the network committed, the first ever.
- The payoffFaster turns, less detention, more freight through the same doors. No capex.
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.
The problem
The hub yard is the last blind spot, run hub by hub on radios.
The Memphis World Hub sprawls across 940 acres, and Project Hercules adds an automated sort on top of it.
The trailer that sort needs is somewhere out there, and our read is that finding it is manual. Across the 30 hubs we mapped, you park 9,810 trailers, more than any audited network. None of those moves run on live data. A faster sort cannot beat a yard that cannot see its own trailers. A radio call and a clipboard are all that stand between a trailer and its cutoff.
Why now
You are automating the sort and folding two networks into one. The yard never got the upgrade.
Project Hercules puts an automated sort at Memphis, while Network 2.0 merges Express and Ground into one network.
Both bets take cost out and speed delivery. Both only hold if the hub yard keeps up. Every trailer your sort waits on is a service level at risk and a cutoff that slips. The TMS, the WMS, and the sort all run on live data. Our read is that the hub yard is the one layer that still does not, staging trailers the sort has no live fix on. Detention starts at hour two and runs $50 to $100 an hour, and drivers now pick their lanes. A yard that burns a driver afternoon loses you the good ones. Make the yard legible now and the new sort lands on a yard that can actually feed it.
The Yard Network System
One standard between your TMS and your WMS, on every yard the network runs.
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 5% came from the lightest touch. The rest is still ahead. FedEx would be the first national carrier to standardize its hub yards 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. Your spotters and gates keep working.
- Keep your YMSRun alongside any local YMS you have. Switch only if and when you decide to.
- ReadsYour TMS appointments, over standard API or EDI.
- WritesGate and turn events back to your WMS, so dock and sort stay current.
- IT liftOne connection per system. No rip-and-replace, no platform migration.
Your own audit
This is FedEx's own audit, not a generic benchmark. We mapped 30 US hubs and terminals from satellite. Here is what the manual handoffs cost today, and where the standard lands first.
- 26 of 29
- Run drop yardswhere the 48 to 24 minute drop-and-hook win lands
- 26 of 29
- Gated with a guard or boothflowGATE automates the check-in step the booth does by hand
- 26 of 29
- Long entry drives where queues buildpre-arrival check-in keeps the queue off the road
See all 29 sitesOpen the audit →We are not asking for a pilot. We are asking for a conversation.
A 30-minute call, direct with Casey. 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. We show you what we found, you tell us straight where it fits. If the call goes well, we talk pilot. If not, 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.
