Dock planning: stopping the queue at the door
Waiting at a loading door costs no kilometres but plenty of hours, and those hours rarely appear in a report. Here is where they come from and what helps.
Why it goes wrong at the door
A dock is a narrow passage. Everything has to pass through it in order and on time, and every delay further up the chain arrives there at once.
In floriculture that is sharper still. Around an auction clock, inbound and outbound land in the same few hours, and a vehicle twenty minutes late has not lost twenty minutes, it has lost a slot.
The result is familiar: a line of vehicles waiting while a door further along stands empty, because the sequence is wrong and nobody has sight of both.
What a dock slot is, and is not
A dock slot is an agreement about time and place: this vehicle, this door, this period. It is not a guarantee that unloading finishes within that period, and that distinction causes most of the frustration.
Good slot planning allows for how long the handling takes, not just when it starts. Thirty pallets take longer than three roll containers, and a fifteen-minute slot for both is a plan working against itself.
That is why dock planning depends on knowing what is on the vehicle. Without sight of the load, a slot is just a clock.
Making waiting time provable
Most arguments about waiting time stall because nobody has the times. The driver knows, but did not write it down, or wrote it on a slip that reaches the office three days later.
Once arrival, start of unloading and departure are captured automatically, the conversation changes. Not because the customer suddenly agrees, but because you can show precisely which window was missed and by how much.
The consignment note has room for exactly this: expected and actual loading and unloading times side by side. That is not extra admin when it comes from the trip itself.
What helps short of rebuilding
Building more doors is rarely the first answer. In practice three things return more.
First, spreading. If everything inbound is planned for the same hour because it always was, there is often room at the edges of the day that nobody uses.
Second, realistic slot length based on the actual load rather than a fixed fifteen minutes for everyone.
Third, feedback. If the planner can see a vehicle running half an hour behind, the next slot can still be moved. If they hear about it afterwards, there is nothing left to plan.
FAQ
What is the difference between a delivery window and a dock slot?
A window is the period in which a shipment may be unloaded. A slot is a reserved place at a specific door inside that window. A window without a slot can still produce a queue.
How long should a slot be?
As long as the handling actually takes, which differs per shipment. A fixed slot length for every vehicle is the most common reason a tight schedule slips all day.
Who pays for waiting time?
That depends on your terms and on what you can prove. The terms are in your contract; proving it depends on whether the actual times were captured at the time.
Does this work if our customer controls the slots?
Yes, but the emphasis shifts. You plan towards their slots, and the value is in arriving on time and being able to show when you were there.
Windows and actual times in one system
Retrack TMS plans against delivery windows and records actual loading and unloading times on the trip, so waiting time is evidence rather than recollection.
See transport planning software