Our process

Our 4-Step
Dock Scheduling Process

Whether you’re a seasoned scheduler or just now realizing that your warehouse can no longer operate on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis, C3 Reservations will bring your dock operations to a higher level of productivity.

Your challenge, our solution

Learn how we solve your specific operational challenge.

Find your challenge

Explore the Process

Our 4-step method for efficient, reliable dock scheduling

Learn about the Process
Your Challenge

You’re Flooded With Calls & Emails

The C3 Solution

Automate all appointments

C3 Reservations is a web-based scheduling system, available 24/7 that automates communication between all parties.

Features that solves your challenge

Intuitive scheduling interface

Perform all your scheduling tasks in record time

With C3 Reservations, all your dock door schedules are managed with the click of a button. An intuitive calendar view, drag’n’drop functionality and real-time updates allow your schedulers to be the most productive.

Carrier & supplier web portal

No more phone calls!

C3 Reservations empowers your carriers and vendors to manage their appointment requests to all your locations using the self-serve portal that carriers prefer most. The step-by-step approach allows first-time users to grasp the system without any training. Furthermore, the portal provides user management tools to ensure that carriers and suppliers can manage their own logins and passwords. It’s available 24/7 so this can all happen while you sleep.

Flexible automation

Automate your operations

C3 Reservations offers a fully automated system where every request that fits within your schedule and constraints can be automatically processed without any user intervention. The level of automation, however, is customizable; allowing you to gradually ramp up the automation features while you’re using the system.

For example, you’ll be able to automate your top tier carriers and vendors while keeping a hands-on control over your lower tier.

Automated notifications

Keep them in the loop

Every action in C3 Reservations can trigger an email notification. You chose which parties receive any of these events. Furthermore, you can customize the contents and language of all these notices. If that doesn’t keep them in the loop, nothing will!

Document attachments

A picture is worth 1,000 words

Sometimes, a screen is not enough to capture all the information that is pertinent to an appointment. C3 Reservations allows users to attach any type of file to an appointment, be they packing slips, bill of ladings, load integrity pictures, etc. Plus, security restrictions can be applied to document types so that only authorized parties can view them.

Integration

Keep in sync!

Take C3 Reservations to the next level by integrating data with your other information systems, be they ERP, WMS, or TMS. Whether you need to extract data out of C3 Reservations or to push data into it, our system offers a wide variety of different integration options that will fit your capabilities with minimal (if any!) IT involvement.

Multilingual user interface

Appointment, Rendez-Vous, Buchung, Cita

C3 Reservations is fully translated into multiple languages. Within your own organization, individual users can access C3 Reservations in their own language. Plus, each site can have its own time zone ensuring enterprise-wide time integrity.

Your Challenge

Your Dock is a Mess

The C3 Solution

Manage your priorities

C3 Reservations ensures that all appointments respect your operations’ constraints, priorities and service levels.

Features that solves your challenge

Flexible constraint model

Don’t oversimplify your operations to fit your software

Can’t find a product that can accommodate your unique dock scheduling requirements? You’re not alone! Most companies’ scheduling rules & policies are either found in a disorganized binder or the scheduler’s head.

C3 Reservations allows you to translate all your constraints and exceptions into clear and concise rules. It can be as simple as the number of pallets per shift to complex logic tying load types, PO’s, product descriptions and more; C3 Reservations does it all. This means all your rules are now automatically enforced eliminating the need to manually process special appointments and exceptions.

Standing appointments

Reserve capacity ahead of time

A typical scheduling system sometimes allows you to reserve a time for a given carrier or supplier. C3 Reservations goes a step beyond and also allows you to reserve physical capacity and restrict the load content of the allocated time.

Your carrier or supplier doesn’t use its reserved slot? No problem! Configurable expiration dates can free up the reserved slot, allowing others to use this slot.

Rule based duration

Maximize capacity by accurately calculating duration

If a fixed or average appointment time doesn’t work for your business, then our rule-based appointment duration time tool is for you. C3 Reservations comes with a natural-language based rule system that allows you to compute accurate unloading times by including all the subtleties of shipments. Accurate unload times can only mean better labor forecasting and a more precise dock door scheduling.

Flexible automation

Automate your operations

C3 Reservations offers a fully automated system where every request that fits within your schedule and constraints can be automatically processed without any user intervention. The level of automation, however, is customizable; allowing you to gradually ramp up the automation features while you’re using the system.

For example, you’ll be able to automate your top tier carriers and vendors while keeping a hands-on control over your lower tier.

Mobile: Anywhere, Anytime

At the cutting edge of technology

Using the C3 Hub Progressive Web Application on their mobile devices, warehouse and yard personnel can easily capture time stamps related to arrival, on dock and departure times. The C3’s Progressive Web Application is compatible with ANY mobile device.

Operational reports

Document and communicate your results

C3 Reservations includes a flexible built-in reporting tool for which users can be granted a read-only, edit or admin access. Reports can be created and exported directly from the application. Customers may also choose to schedule a daily extract of their data to be integrated with their other reporting systems.

Your Challenge

You Have No Visibility

The C3 Solution

You decide who sees what in real-time – all the time!

C3 Reservations monitors and measures your operation with real-time and flexible reports.

Features that solves your challenge

Multi-site

Manage all your sites from one location

You need to schedule to your stores, your warehouses, your dock doors and your third-party locations? No problem! C3 Reservations supports an unlimited number of sites and warehouses across multiple time zones. All this with distinct capacity management and user access.

This means you can either centralize or decentralize your scheduling, respect regional requirements and obtain enterprise-wide visibility.

Automated notifications

Keep them in the loop

Every action in C3 Reservations can trigger an email notification. You chose which parties receive any of these events. Furthermore, you can customize the contents and language of all these notices. If that doesn’t keep them in the loop, nothing will!

Document attachments

A picture is worth 1,000 words

Sometimes, a screen is not enough to capture all the information that is pertinent to an appointment. C3 Reservations allows users to attach any type of file to an appointment, be they packing slips, bill of ladings, load integrity pictures, etc. Plus, security restrictions can be applied to document types so that only authorized parties can view them.

Global visibility

What’s up?

With an unlimited number of users, you can give a controlled access to any one that needs to see anything in C3 Reservations. No more calls from customer service, purchasing or anyone else. They simply login and retrieve information in real-time.

Mobile: Anywhere, Anytime

At the cutting edge of technology

Using the C3 Hub Progressive Web Application on their mobile devices, warehouse and yard personnel can easily capture time stamps related to arrival, on dock and departure times. The C3’s Progressive Web Application is compatible with ANY mobile device.

Operational reports

Document and communicate your results

C3 Reservations includes a flexible built-in reporting tool for which users can be granted a read-only, edit or admin access. Reports can be created and exported directly from the application. Customers may also choose to schedule a daily extract of their data to be integrated with their other reporting systems.

Your Challenge

You Pay Too Much

The C3 Solution

Maximize your resources!

C3 Reservations’ capacity model balances your dock workload so you can accurately plan your labor and equipment needs.

Features that solves your challenge

Quality Assurance

You can’t improve what you can’t measure

For companies who are not satisfied with simply measuring on-time deliveries and relevant KPI’s related to appointments scheduling, C3 Reservations permits the dock manager to capture faults configured to match the merchandising policy. The audit functionality also allows setting up a disciplined audit of loads in accordance with personalized business requirements.

Operational reports

Document and communicate your results

C3 Reservations includes a flexible built-in reporting tool for which users can be granted a read-only, edit or admin access. Reports can be created and exported directly from the application. Customers may also choose to schedule a daily extract of their data to be integrated with their other reporting systems.

Flexible constraint model

Don’t dumb down your operations to fit your software

Can’t find a product that can accommodate your unique dock scheduling requirements? You’re not alone! Most companies’ scheduling rules & policies are either found in a disorganized binder or the scheduler’s head.

C3 Reservations allows you to translate all your constraints and exceptions into clear and concise rules. It can be as simple as the number of pallets per shift to complex logic tying load types, PO’s, product descriptions and more; C3 Reservations does it all. This means all your rules are now automatically enforced eliminating the need to manually process special appointments and exceptions.

Rule based duration

Maximize capacity by accurately calculating duration

If a fixed or average appointment time doesn’t work for your business, then our rule-based appointment duration time tool is for you. C3 Reservations comes with a natural-language based rule system that allows you to compute accurate unloading times by including all the subtleties of shipments. Accurate unload times can only mean better labor forecasting and a more precise dock door scheduling.

Your Challenge

You Have Strained Relations With Carriers & Suppliers

The C3 Solution

Respect your partners – save time and $$!

C3 Reservations’ self-serve portal provides your carriers with the flexibility they want while compliance and scorecarding ensure they respect the standards of your operations.

Features that solves your challenge

Carrier & supplier web portal

No more phone calls!

C3 Reservations empowers your carriers and vendors to manage their appointment requests to all your locations using the self-serve portal that carriers prefer most. The step-by-step approach allows first-time users to grasp the system without any training. Furthermore, the portal provides user management tools to ensure that carriers and suppliers can manage their own logins and passwords. It’s available 24/7 so this can all happen while you sleep.

Flexible automation

Automate your operations

C3 Reservations offers a fully automated system where every request that fits within your schedule and constraints can be automatically processed without any user intervention. The level of automation, however, is customizable; allowing you to gradually ramp up the automation features while you’re using the system.

For example, you’ll be able to automate your top tier carriers and vendors while keeping a hands-on control over your lower tier.

Automated notifications

Keep them in the loop

Every action in C3 Reservations can trigger an email notification. You chose which parties receive any of these events. Furthermore, you can customize the contents and language of all these notices. If that doesn’t keep them in the loop, nothing will!

Multilingual user interface

Keep in sync!

C3 Reservations is fully translated into multiple languages. Within your own organization, individual users can access C3 Reservations in their own language. Plus, each site can have its own time zone ensuring enterprise-wide time integrity.

Document attachments

A picture is worth 1,000 words

Sometimes, a screen is not enough to capture all the information that is pertinent to an appointment. C3 Reservations allows users to attach any type of file to an appointment, be they packing slips, bill of ladings, load integrity pictures, etc. Plus, security restrictions can be applied to document types so that only authorized parties can view them.

Integration

Keep in sync!

Take C3 Reservations to the next level by integrating data with your other information systems, be they ERP, WMS, or TMS. Whether you need to extract data out of C3 Reservations or to push data into it, our system offers a wide variety of different integration options that will fit your capabilities with minimal (if any!) IT involvement.

It’s all part of our simple 4-step process

We’ve got you covered

Plan

Build constraints and rules against shipment attributes in order to respect your warehouse priorities. Establish a plan for each facility to determine who can deliver what, where, and when.

So, let’s assume you’ve built a plan. How are you going to take all these dock appointments and ensure they properly fit into your schedule without turning into a call centre?

C3 Reservations’ self-serve kiosk ensures that your carriers and vendors have 24/7 access to real-time availability at each of your facilities.

Instead of a first-come, first-serve concept, they are now restricted to the plan that you’ve setup. Now, you receive what you need, when you need it. This can all happen automatically. Any exceptions are channelled into a prioritized task queue ensuring you never miss anything.

Schedule

Easily configurable custom shift templates to automatically manage the appointment requests, amendments and exceptions.

As a warehouse operator, you need to provide the business with the products they need, when they need them, at an effective labor cost. Before you can do this, you need to determine ahead of time what you are willing to accept and when.

Otherwise these challenges can quickly become overwhelming. Planning is C3 Reservations’ specialty. You can build a plan for each warehouse that will dictate who can deliver which product, at which facility and in what time period. This ensures that your carriers and vendors will respect your priorities and limitations when they request their appointments.

Communicate

Automate communication at all levels; by allowing suppliers/carriers/customers to request appointments via the web portal, event triggered email confirmations and real-time communication with other information systems.

Building a schedule cannot happen in a vacuum. While C3 Reservations’ self-serve kiosk eliminates all of the phone calls, emails and faxes involved with building a dock appointment schedule you still need to know that all parties are receiving the information they need.

C3 Reservations allows you to broadcast information to the relevant parties as events occur in the form of system to system integration or automated emails.

In addition, carriers or vendors can attach electronic documents (such as packing slips or bill of ladings) to each appointment. Now anyone involved in the appointment process can view the status and relevant details pertaining to the appointment at any time.

Measure

Monitor and improve your operations with real-time dashboards, scorecards and reports that help you enforce compliance and accountability

You can’t improve something you can’t measure, this is why C3 Reservations provides you with a wealth of information to monitor your operation.

Real-time dashboards, operational reports and specialized reports such as vendor report cards, ensure that you have all of the information that allows you to manage your day-to-day operation and make your vendors and carriers accountable.

In addition to standard reports and dashboards C3 Solutions’ dock appointment scheduling system provides access to a data-store that allows you to generate specific reports for your business.

Book A Demo

Meet C3’s Industry Experts

Our C3 experts will analyze your needs and design the perfect plan based on your constraints.

Our C3 Experts

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