Yard management & dock scheduling software.
DockOptima replaces spreadsheets, phone calls and gatehouse paperwork with a single scheduling platform your team, your hauliers and your drivers all work from — so loads land on time and detention charges stop landing at all.
Built for manufacturing, retail, 3PL, food & beverage and cold storage operations. Now onboarding early warehouse partners.
Example DC · Tuesday 14 Oct
Example schedule · 5 bays
Built for manufacturing, retail, 3PL, food & beverage and cold storage operations
One system from the booking request to the gate barrier
Most yards run on four disconnected tools. DockOptima joins scheduling, carrier self-service, gatehouse control and analytics into one record per load — visible to everyone who touches it.
Plan the day before it plans you
Drag-and-drop appointments across bays, see live status on every slot, approve carrier requests inline and spot the pinch point at 14:00 before it happens.
Example DC · Tuesday 14 Oct
Example schedule · 5 bays
Know what is on site, right now
Gate events, trailer locations and live dwell timers — no clipboard, no radio.
Hauliers book themselves in
Self-registration, live slot availability, document upload, ETA updates and two-way chat — with your booking rules enforced automatically.
Live on your first site this week
No hardware. No integration project. Open a browser, configure a site and start booking.
- 01
Configure your sites
Model each site exactly as it runs — no consultant, no integration project.
- Bays and doors, including parallel capacity where two vehicles share one door
- Load types with their own turnaround times, durations and dock rules
- Opening hours per bay: 24-hour days, bank holidays and seasonal closures
- Booking lead times, daily and monthly limits, approval on or off
- Required reference numbers, custom fields, site instructions and PPE
- 02
Invite your hauliers
Carriers self-register against your site and book into real availability — your rules, enforced automatically.
- Find your site in the public directory or via your booking link
- See only genuinely free slots, filtered by load type and vehicle needs
- Instant confirmation or request-to-book, depending on your settings
- Email confirmations with date, time, PO, vehicle reg, site rules and calendar files
- Reschedule and cancel within your notice window, without phoning the office
- 03
Run the day live
From gate-in to gate-out, one appointment record follows the vehicle so gate, dock team and carrier all see the same status.
- Drivers self check-in by QR code from their phone — no app, no account
- Gatehouse console clears arrivals, verifies trailers and records gate events
- Drag-and-drop day view to move vehicles between bays as plans change
- Two-way messaging with the driver and live ETA updates on the appointment
- Dwell timers start automatically; every status change hits the audit log
- 04
Measure and tighten
The data is collected as a by-product of running the day — nothing for the team to fill in.
- Dwell time, gate-to-gate, sliced by carrier, load type, bay and site
- On-time arrival % and turnaround against booked slot
- Carrier scorecards for detention conversations and contract reviews
- Bay and site utilisation, so expansion decisions are backed by numbers
- Export everything to Excel or your BI stack for weekly ops reviews
Everything an enterprise yard actually needs
Dock scheduling
Drag-and-drop calendar across bays and sites with conflict-free slotting and recurring series.
Carrier portal
Self-service booking, live availability, document upload and ETA updates for every haulier.
Driver self check-in
Mobile QR check-in with site instructions, PPE requirements and live queue position.
Gate management
Gatehouse console for arrivals, departures, ID checks and trailer verification.
Yard management
Live trailer inventory, yard locations, dwell timers and demurrage exposure.
Driver & carrier chat
Two-way messaging on the appointment record — no more chasing phone numbers.
Appointment management
Eight-stage journey, audit log, claims, photos, gate sheets and .ics exports.
Analytics & reporting
Dwell, on-time %, throughput and carrier scorecards, exportable to your BI stack.
Built for the way your sector actually loads
The same platform, tuned to the constraints that matter in your operation.
Manufacturing
Line-side deliveries sequenced to production, not to whoever arrives first.
Retail
Peak-season volume without peak-season queues at the RDC.
Food & beverage
Temperature windows, hygiene checks and traceable arrival records.
3PL logistics
Many clients, many carriers, one scheduling standard across every site.
Distribution
High-throughput RDCs with strict slot discipline and live dock utilisation.
Cold storage
Protect the cold chain with tight dwell control and priority chilled bays.
Automotive
JIT and JIS inbound flows with sequence-critical delivery windows.
Construction
Site deliveries booked, permitted and PPE-briefed before the lorry leaves.
The queue is the cost. Remove the queue.
Every hour a trailer sits in your yard is money leaving the business — in detention, in overtime, in missed cut-offs. DockOptima attacks all three.
Stop paying detention
Timestamped arrival, gate and departure records settle carrier disputes in seconds.
Level the labour curve
Slot rules spread volume across the shift instead of stacking it at 06:00.
Free your ops team
No inbox scheduling, no phone calls, no whiteboard — carriers self-serve inside your rules.
Prove performance
Carrier scorecards and on-time data you can take into a commercial review.
Bay schedule
Tuesday · Manchester DC
94%
On time
38 min
Avg turnaround
12
Trailers on site
Illustrative estimate only. Assumptions are editable above and your actual results will depend on your operation. Book a demo for a facility-specific model.
Numbers your board will actually ask about
Dwell time, on-time arrival, turnaround, bay utilisation and carrier performance — measured automatically from the operational record, not from a spreadsheet someone maintains on Fridays.
Dwell time
Tracked per trailer
On-time arrival
Measured automatically
Bay utilisation
By site and shift
Throughput by day
Last 7 days · all sites
Detention hrs
Tracked
Trend
Late arrivals
Tracked
Trend
No-shows
Tracked
Trend
“I built DockOptima after seeing how much time and money warehouses lose to dock queues, detention disputes and manual scheduling. Years working in supply chain and warehouse operations showed me what actually happens at the gate and on the yard — so this platform is designed around the real day, not a boardroom diagram.”
Founder, DockOptima
Supply chain and warehouse operations background
Run a 60-day pilot on your live docks
We are partnering with a small number of UK warehouses and 3PLs to run DockOptima on their live operations for 60 days, free. You get full platform access, hands-on facility setup and a direct line to the product team; we get your honest feedback on what works and what needs to change.
No credit card required · 60 days full access · UK-based support
Questions ops teams ask us first
Simple, flat pricing
One plan per site with everything included. No per-booking fees, no per-user fees and no charge for carrier accounts.
Free Trial
Try DockOptima free for 14 days, no credit card required.
- Full platform access
- One site, unlimited docks
- Carrier booking portal
- Cancel anytime
DockOptima
per site / per year
- Unlimited dock bays per site
- Unlimited appointments
- Unlimited users and carrier accounts
- Carrier self-booking portal
- Mobile QR driver check-in and gatehouse console
- Yard, dwell and turnaround analytics
- Priority support
Running a larger operation?
A 30-minute walkthrough with a real operations specialist — we will model your bays, your volumes and your carriers, not a generic demo account.