Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) has begun rolling out a new Dock Management System in North America, which has already reduced truck waiting times at its operations in New York JFK by more than 20%.

WFS — a member of the SATS Group — said the solution is another feature of its in-house developed ePic Enterprise Solution, which is now operational at 52 WFS airport stations across the US.

In the announcement, WFS said Epic had been designed 'by cargo people for cargo people' as a unifying e-business platform that enables collaboration and simplified communication within the cargo community stakeholders: shippers, freight forwarders, truckers, airlines, ground handling agents, consignees, and regulatory bodies.

The new Dock Management System will be implemented across WFS' major airport locations in North America over the next 12 months, with Atlanta, Miami, and Boston next in line to adopt the solution.

WFS said trucking companies, consignees, and forwarders would be able to create their own slot booking for cargo drop-off or recovery at WFS stations, ensuring better optimisation of truck yards and alleviating congestion.

It is also one of five new features accessible via the ePic platform, including Warehouse Progress Monitoring, Integrated Scale, ICS2 integration and functionality with airline partners, and Barcode integration.

"For WFS in North America, ePic is ahead of other handling software because it is constantly evolving based on expertise from the field. We have a process to continually look at requests from within our business, which can come from Warehouse Supervisors or Office Agents, and we prioritize them," said  Shawnpaul Booth, vice president of cargo, NOAM, at WFS.

"The improvements we make are driven by users. And the fact that ePic is designed to be quite a simple system means building APIs is very quick and easy, which is leading airline customers to ask us to implement it within their own locations because they see the efficiencies where we work with them."

WFS noted that using ePic, WFS has been able to automate or eliminate 38 steps in the import/export cargo handling process as it allows WFS to use a single system to handle multiple airline customers in multiple facilities using one centralised solution, simplifying operational processes, training requirements, and maximizing efficiencies.

It also incorporates import and export cargo and flight management, office and warehouse functions to communicate every cargo movement in real-time, and integrated eScreening to ensure Federal Cargo Screening requirements are met and documented.

WFS said CargoiQ integration also connects cargo and data through live updates of air waybill (AWB) status through standard IATA messaging — and encompasses a customer service portal and cash collection and billing.

"Operational Excellence is at the heart of WFS' customer commitment, and ePic drives this for our North American business handling more than 2.48 billion kilos and over 6.600 flights per annum. It is giving a level of transparency and visibility our customers value, and it gives WFS a big advantage in the handling market," Booth said.

"We will absolutely continue to look to automate or eliminate more cargo processes because we have fast, first-hand insight into what works and what doesn't," the WFS executive added.