Prepared for Universal Logistics Holdings · 26 US sites audited · one network standard
The Yard Network System, by FreightRoll.
Contract logistics grew, margins shrank. The yard is where you win that margin back. YardFlow standardizes it.
Your Q1 2026 contract logistics revenue rose 5.3% to $269.5 million, yet segment margins narrowed to 6.5% and the quarter swung to a net loss. You grew the book and gave back the profit. The yard is the cost you can still take out. You run the in-plant logistics for the OEMs, and every one of those moves starts and ends at a gate. Our read is that the gate is the one handoff still running blind. That gap is detention you eat and turns the OEM counts against you.
YardFlow is the Yard Network System, the software layer between your TMS and your WMS. It puts every site on one standard so trucks move through faster and you hold margin on contracts you bid thin. Primo Brands committed all ~260 of its sites to it, and at one plant, side by side on the same gate, drop and hook turn time went from 48 minutes to 24. That protocol now runs across all 24 live sites. Faster yards are how you keep the contract and win the next one.
- 18
- US sites mapped from satellite
- 4,790
- trailer spots across the audited sites
- 48 to 24 min
- trailer turn time, measured at Primo
- The gapYou run the yard for the OEM. Nothing runs that yard on live data.
- What we doOne digital standard for every site. EZ-Pass at the gate, air-traffic control for trailers.
- The proofPrimo cut turns 48 to 24 min and was first ever to commit all ~260 sites.
- The payoffFaster turns, less detention, fewer escapes. Keep the contract and win the next one.
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
You run the OEM yard, and you run it blind.
GM Arlington Logistics Center in Grand Prairie has 130 dock doors and no gate at all.
Trucks roll straight onto the apron, and a spotter chases them down by radio. The line those parts feed never stops. The yard that feeds it has no way to see what is staged where. Every yard you run does it its own way, and that drift is the unit cost crushing your 6.5% margin.
Why now
Q1 swung to a loss while contract logistics grew. The yards that waste a driver's day are where that margin leaks.
Q1 2026 swung to a net loss even as contract logistics revenue grew 5.3%.
You added volume and watched segment margins compress to 6.5%. The yard is the cost line nobody standardized. Every site you run is a contract you have to keep. You win the next one on cost per unit and on how fast a truck gets through your gate. For the first time in four years, pricing power is swinging to carriers as capacity tightens. The next spot market punishes operators 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 gate slip, every forced check-in, every trailer a driver hunts down is added cost on a contract you bid thin. When margins are this tight, that cost counts double. Standardize the yard and you turn more trucks through the same doors, on the same headcount. That is margin you keep and a renewal you win. A network standard is a service your competitors cannot match site by site.
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. Universal would be the first asset-based 3PL to take it.
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. Universal runs the yard and the in-plant logistics for the OEMs, so one standard across the network is a service no competitor can match site by site.
“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.
- Run inside the OEM protocolYardFlow runs your value-added operations as a sub-protocol inside the OEM yard standard. No turf fight.
- ReadsYour TMS appointments, over standard API or EDI.
- WritesGate and turn events back to your WMS, so dock and inventory stay current.
- IT lift
Your own audit
This is Universal's own audit, not a generic benchmark. We mapped 26 of your US sites from satellite. Here is what the manual handoffs cost today, and where the standard lands first.
- 17 of 18
- Run drop yardswhere the 48 to 24 minute drop-and-hook win lands
- 9 of 18
- Gated with a guard or boothflowGATE automates the check-in step the booth does by hand
- 16 of 18
- Long entry drives where queues buildpre-arrival check-in keeps the queue off the road
See all 18 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.
