LAX's large, busy cargo zone is facing many congestion issues. Not so at Menzies Aviation. The ground handling agent has eliminated wait times, maximized capacity, and makes better use of resources using Nallian's Truck Visit Management Solution. A digital front desk and slot booking system ensure a smooth flow of the freight pick up and drop offs at its premises. 

Solution at a glance

How it works

"The solution allows me to focus on ensuring the continuity of the flow, instead of on administration and discussions with truck drivers." 

What the Front Counter Supervisor says | "Making my work easier."

Lily Mejia: "The system makes my work a lot easier. I now have a clear overview of who is coming and when. If needed, I will slightly adjust the booked slots based on my knowledge of our customers and how long it will take to handle the freight they will pick up or drop off. This helps us ensure the continuity of our service. As I spend less time on administration and discussions with drivers, I can focus on ensuring continuity of the flow and handling last-minute visits or visits that require special attention.

What the General Manager says | "Customers no longer complain."

Petr Cizek, General Manager: "We used to have no visibility on who would be coming when to pick up or drop off goods. Trucks would show up unannounced, often at the same time, which created waiting times. Today, we channel activity and control the flow, as trucking companies and freight forwarders need to book a slot according to our availability. This eliminates wait times, but it also enables us to offer a better and faster service at the gate, since we can plan staff and prepare freight for the scheduled pick ups and drop offs. As a result, we are delivering a better service to our customers. It is my most important indicator for success: our customers no longer complain." 

"Trucks used to show up unannounced. Today we channel activity and are in control of the flow."

What the Freight Forwarder says | "The solution works well"

Katie Griley, President of Griley Airfreight: "When Menzies started the solution, we saw an immediate impact. We believe in the solution because we have seen it work, and it works well." 

Fast roll-out and adoption

In only 8 weeks, the solution was up and running, and the first slots were being booked. Menzies started the exercise with a handful of freight forwarders and trucking companies, and gradually onboarded more users. Today, more than 40 parties are using the system, representing 80% of the cargo volume handled. This amount is still growing, as also the smaller actors are now joining. 

Petr Cizek adds: "Getting everyone involved in the project is key. We started with a small group of users and very much engaged with them, explaining why we were adopting this approach, showing them the benefits, and training them on how to use the system. We've received precious feedback from them. We've then continued and repeated this process with the next waves of users."

Digital Front Desk facilitating driver registration

Digital Front Desk module runs on Ipad Tablets on a mobile stand in the front desk area. It allows all drivers to self-register themselves digitally upon arrival. The interface is available in English and Spanish, a significant benefit for the multilingual LAX community.

Petr Cizek: "We have selected Nallian's solution after carefully studying the market. We have seen how the solution worked at Brussels Airport and found it to be the most flexible and best fit for our needs. Given the challenging situation at the LAX cargo hub, the implementation in this station was considered a solid test case. It has proven to be very successful. 

Using the Slot Booking app integrated with their kiosk system empowered the handler at Brussels Airport’s cargo hub to smoothen super peaks, reduce stress for acceptance staff, eliminate waiting time and plan staff more efficiently in view of actual demand.

Swissport Cargo Services is the first ground handler at Brussels Airport’s cargo hub to use the Slot Booking app together with their kiosk system for self registration. The introduction of Slot Booking helped the ground handler to smoothen peaks, reduce stress for operational staff, provide better service and plan staff more efficiently.

Better visibility, flattened peaks 

“One of the key benefits of the Slot Booking app is that we now have better visibility on who is coming when", says Swissport's Quality Manager. "Peak times used to be very challenging, with all trucks arriving at exactly the same time, leading to long waiting times, heavy discussions on who is to be served when and hence a lot of stress for our acceptance staff. Today, we can better channel activity in view of capacity. We still face peak times, but have been able to eliminate the so-called ‘superpeaks’. For example, we’ll still see a lot of activity between 7 and 10.30 a.m., but trucks will no longer all show up at 7 a.m.."

A smooth, digital acceptance process

He adds: “We have improved our acceptance process a 100% and have now full control of the entire flow. The acceptance zone has been closed off, with a priority lane for drivers who arrive with a booked slot. Drivers very quickly understood and adopted the system and accept the order in which they are being served. This has dramatically reduced stress for our acceptance staff.”

The digital flow of the Slot Booking app and kiosk registration system has accelerated the acceptance process - reducing admin and paperwork. Drivers now first register at the kiosk, which is fully integrated with BRUcloud and the Slot Booking app and automatically shows his/her booked slot(s). The role of the acceptance staff is focussed on coordination: they confirm the order in which drivers are served (as per their booked slots) and with clear visiblity on the planning can easier assess and decide when to handle ad hoc deliveries or pick ups in between planned slots.

Better planning of manpower

Having visibility on planned pick ups and deliveries makes it also easier to organize manpower in line with actual demand. “In particular off peak and during night shifts this allows us to better plan our resources, so we always have the right amount of staff available to ensure our customers quality service.”

Fast adoption

“The Slot Booking app is a very intuitive, easy-to-use system. In just a couple of weeks the system was accepted and we had all users up and running. Training was provided to all people involved: we explained how the system works and why we are using it and coached people on the fly - both our internal staff and the drivers. During the pilot phase, we needed to adjust a couple of practical things - for example, we forgot to take into account the change in shifts in the planning, which resulted in a 15 minutes gap, but this was very easy to adjust.”

Advice for future Slot Booking users

Leveraging his experience with implementing and using the Slot Booking app, Lepage recommends handlers who are about to start with the Slot Booking app to take the following into account:

Start small
Start small, with a limited number of gates and scale once the process is duly validated. Pay enough attention to finetune the administrative flow.

Involve the right people in training
Involve both management and operational staff. Ensure enough people with authority are present to support, accompany and supervise during the training. Get involved yourself. And repeat where necessary.

Launch Slot Booking independently, then integrate with kiosk
When integrating the Slot Booking app with a kiosk system, start with a standard registration process at the reception desk and activate integration with the kiosk once people are used to the Slot Booking process. It helps installing the right operational habits, for example to always first check the planning during registration.

“Today, we can better channel activity in view of capacity. We have been able to eliminate the so-called ‘superpeaks’”, says Tom Lepage

Looking ahead

"We are very much looking forward to integrate the Slot Booking app with the Freight Management app, another landside management app on the BRUcloud platform, which will give us even more granular visibility on what freight will be picked up and delivered when and by whom. This will enable us to work in a fully pro-active mode, preparing all goods in advance, which will allow us to handle more freight and offer our customers an even better and faster service. Also, in 2021 we will start operating from our new warehouse facilities, which will increase our overall capacity and means we’ll be able to make more Slot Booking gates available."

A coordinated approach of freight pick ups and deliveries enables faster handling, smoothened peaks and idle times and stellar service quality while dealing with rapid growth.

LACHS, Liege Airport Cargo Handling Services, is the first ground handler at Liege Airport to use Nallian’s Slot Booking for Air Cargo application. It is one of the apps on the LGG Cargo Cloud, the airport’s data sharing platform geared towards improving operational efficiency, reliability and transparency at the cargo hub.

​Ensuring the highest level of customer service while dealing with rapid growth was indeed one of LACHS' drivers to start using the Slot Booking app. The company, handling almost 200.000 tons a year and 150 trucks a day, saw its operations grow by 50% over the past two years. “Our main ambition was to improve the quality of our service, not to work faster, but using the Slot Booking application we managed to do both”, says Hossaine El Bouayadi, IT Manager & Business Process Development at LACHS.

LACHS reasons to start using Slot Booking 

• Exponential growth: volumes growing +50% over the past 2 years, up to almost 200.000 tons, puts a strain on operations
• Peaks and idle times: having no visiblity on what’s coming made it impossible to corrrectly plan staff and ressources in view of actual demand
• Long waiting times: drivers waiting before and at the gates, due to a lack of visibility on who would come and when and to time-consuming paper-based acceptance and warehouse processes
• Planning and forecast based on historical data instead of actual / real-time data
• Continuous drive to improve customer service

How it works

​LACHS makes slots available in the application in view of their capacity, using a wide range of parameters, such as

• ​cargo type (general/special cargo, such as pharma, live animals, perishables, ...)
• type of location (cooled warehouse, oversized cargo, ...)
• day type (weekend, week day, bank holiday, ...)

Says Hossaine El Bouayadi: “We are handling a lot of special cargo and this helps us to better channel pick-ups and deliveries in view of the available (specialized) infrastructure. We can also ensure we have the right staff and equipment available when the drivers arrive.”

When a booker requests a slot the system will automatically match availability and demand or propose alternatives when needed. Drivers with a booked slot enjoy priority treatment, both when accessing the cargo zone and at the registration desk.

Drivers with a booked slot enjoy priority treatment, both when accessing the cargo zone and at the registration desk.

“As the booker uploads information regarding the pick-up or delivery when booking the slot, we can plan staff accordingly and prepare goods pro-actively. Having the information digitally available allows us to speed up both our administrative and warehouse operations. Prior to using the Slot Booking app, the handling of a truck (paperwork + warehouse operations) would take on average 3 hours. Today this is done in only 2 hours.” At the moment we can handle around 8 gates simultaneously, but as we are ramping up usage of the system we trust will be able to increase this.

As the booker uploads information regarding the pick up or delivery when booking a slot, goods can be prepared pro-actively. 

Faster execution with an integrated approach flow from acceptance to warehouse operations​

A newly created function, the Truck Manager, is the liaison between the acceptance and warehouse operations. He checks the driver’s registration and documentation and then channels him to the correct warehouse location. Says Thomas Debay, Truck & Pharma Manager: “We spend a lot less time on administration as we have the information in the system. This coordinated approach makes it easier for both our staff and the drivers, and speeds up operations. Logging all info such as ATA, ATD, etc. provides valuable insights in terms of the number of slots booked, respect of timings etc. Sharing this with users helps us to further improve usage of the system.”

What to take into account when starting Slot Booking

​Asked what they would recommend handlers who wish to get started with the Slot Booking app, El Bouayadi and Debay comment:

• Involve all relevant people from the start: “Our teams responsible for warehouse operations, truck management, quality management, admin, IT and general management have all been working closely together.”
• Communicate, internally and externally: “Provide information (and repeat!) so all is crystal clear. We organised trainings for bookers, distributed flyers, were on the floor explaining the app, etc. - which we believe enabled fast understanding and adoption of the solution.”
• Insist bookers complete all info - “The more booking details they inject in the system, the smoother operations will run and the faster they will be served.”

Involving all relevant people from the start is crucial for the success of the project, say Hossaine El Bouayadi and Thomas Debay.  

Looking ahead

“Initially using them in parallel,  we’re now integrating the Slot Booking app and our ERP system as this will allow us to save even more time during acceptance”, says El Bouayadi. “We’re also increasing the system’s usage: our main customer CAL is already using Slot Booking for about 40% its shipments, which we wish to increase to 100%. Before the end of the year we’ll also make Slot Booking available for all our customers, so they all can enjoy the benefits of highly coordinated picks ups and deliveries.”

Brussels Airport's cargo community eliminates waiting time and smoothens peaks and idle times at its ground handlers’ facilities using Nallian’s Slot Booking for Air Cargo.

The airport
Brussels Airport Company

The project
Ground handlers, freight forwarders and trucking companies coordinate freight handling processes through an online slot booking application that matches supply and demand. 

• Eliminated 90% of waiting time
• Smoothened peaks and idle times
• Faster handling at the gate
• Easy booking, only 1 system to manage regardless of the ground handler used
• More reliable service, higher customer satisfaction

Brussels Airport’s cargo community has eliminated some of the most compelling challenges related to landside freight handling. Using Nallian’s Slot Booking for Air Cargo, a collaborative application that enables the cargo community’s ground handlers, freight forwarders and trucking companies to better coordinate their freight handling processes, they have generated significant benefits such as the elimination of waiting times - resulting in time savings of on average 30 minutes to one hour per delivery or pick-up, smoothened peaks and idle times and more efficient handling at the gate.

​From disconnected, paper-based to collaborative work

Brussels Airport’s cargo community includes about 25 ground handlers, freight forwarders and trucking companies. Every year, more than 600.000 tons of freight is being handled at the different ground handler’s facilities. Using mostly paper-based processes or disparate, disconnected systems, operations suffered from inefficiencies whereby the absence of proactive information lead to inefficient personnel and asset planning at the gates, peaks and idle times and long waiting times for freight handlers or trucking companies.

An application by Air Cargo for Air Cargo

Nallian’s Slot Booking for Air Cargo was introduced to enable a more collaborative way of working. Its implementation is yet another step in the BRUcloud project, an initiative of Brussels Airport to enable the different stakeholders of its cargo community to work more integrated and act as a network, using Nallian’s Open Data Sharing Platform. The Slot Booking application has been designed and developed together with the cargo community to perfectly fit the real world and adapt to a wide range of operational models.

Matching slot supply and demand

Via the app, trucking companies and freight forwarders can reserve time slots at a specific facility using a standard booking form. Information is submitted either via the online interface or via machine-to-machine communication. This means they no longer have to learn and manage different systems, but have one unified approach for all ground handlers. All slots and their statuses (available, reserved, pending) are presented in an intuitive calendar with day, week and month views. New slots can be easily reserved using the drag and drop functionality. Prebuilt templates allow bookers to easily upload information such as cargo type or truck type, which facilitates recurring bookings.

​The ground handlers can make slots available for different warehouses and cargo types, in line with their capacity. The system matches supply and demand and, when needed, proposes alternative slots via a machine-to-machine communication or the web application. Handlers have a clear overview of and proactively receive information about all bookings, so they can organize personnel and assets at the gate accordingly.

Smooth implementation, fast adoption

Following a pilot phase in September 2017, the application went live in January 2018 with a user group including ground handlers WFS and Aviapartner and freight forwarders DHL Global Forwarding, Kuehne+Nagel, Skyfast, Nippon Express and Panalpina.

According to Sara Van Gelder, Cargo Business Development Manager at Brussels Airport Company, “the first feedback was very positive and the implementation ran smoothly and according to plan. From the beginning we have demonstrated the platform to all interested parties, which resulted in more parties lining up quickly to become part of the user group.”

Eddy Myngheer, WFS comments: “WFS supports this project for 100%. We strongly believe in the positive effects of the use of the Slot Booking App. The first go live was a success and the involved participants within WFS are more than ever enthusiastic about the further roll out.”

In March, the number of users was doubled, including amongst others freight forwarders Schenker, DSV, Ceva, and Yusen Logistics, and only 6 months after the first deployment partners representing 80% of the total cargo volume were onboarded. Ground handler Swissport, who will be using  the application integrated with their own Dock Door Management Application, will onboard later this year.  

​According to David Bellon, DHL Global Forwarding, “The slot booking app has been a true game changer, improving efficiency, predictability and transparency throughout our cargo pick-up and delivery process. It has reduced waiting times by on average 30 to 60 minutes per pick-up or delivery, going up to up to several hours during peak times. Also at the gates we are saving precious time, thanks to much faster and more efficient handling. This allows us to make better use of our resources and deliver our customers a better, more reliable service."

Eliminating waiting time

Right from the start, important benefits have been recorded, as confirms Jeff Segers at Skyfast: “During the first days of the go live Skyfast could already eliminate a lot of waiting time at the ground handlers’ facilities. We have been able to deploy our staff more efficiently than before. On the long term the Slot Booking application will definitely result in cost savings.”

According to a satisfaction survey that was run amongst users of the application, freight forwarders and trucking companies are gaining on average between 30 minutes and 1 hour per delivery or pick-up - time they would usually lose before getting access to the gate. This generates important savings,  as according to a recent study of ITLB, the Belgian Institute for Transportation & Logistics, 1 hour of traffic jams costs Belgian transportation companies on average 80€. It also increases safety and security on the cargo grounds as less trucks are hanging around idle, often parked illegally.

In addition, 100% of users indicate that goods are being handled faster at the gate, resulting in additional time savings. This mitigates the risk of missing cut-off times and unhappy customers. Freight forwarders or trucking companies also no longer need to learn and manage different tools, as slots can be reserved via a unified booking form.