Module 11 · Dispatch + performance

OBD, OTIF & Truck Management

Outbound delivery creation, shipment, route planning, vehicle loading, proof of delivery, OTIF measurement and truck turnaround improvements.

Course reading

Understand the process

Part 1

The outbound delivery is more than a truck

An outbound delivery (OBD) connects the customer order to picking, packing, loading and goods issue. The delivery plan also needs an available vehicle, route, appointment and proof of delivery. A truck at the gate cannot compensate for missing paperwork or an order that has not been picked.

Record arrival at gate, document clearance, dock start, loading finish and gate exit. If the truck waits five hours for a dock and spends twenty minutes being loaded, adding another forklift will barely change its total turnaround. Fix the queue, scheduling or document handover instead.

Part 2

Measure what the customer received

Truck turnaround measures time spent on site, while OTIF measures whether the customer received the whole promised order on time. Define which date counts as the promise and whether partial delivery is acceptable before reporting performance. Compare dispatch with proof of delivery to separate warehouse delays from transit delays.

A daily review should connect each failed delivery to a reason: stock shortage, pick error, late loading, carrier delay or wrong address. Assign a corrective action to the owner of that step. A single overall percentage without reasons cannot tell the team where to improve.

What you must take away

Truck turnaround is measured gate-in to gate-out, including paperwork.
A dock appointment system converts a queue into a schedule.
Proof of delivery closes the loop; without it, OTIF is self-reported.

In the SAP process

Create the outbound delivery, pick, pack and assign it to a shipment.
Post goods issue at loading, and record the vehicle and driver details.
Capture proof of delivery against the delivery document.

Case study

Six hours at the gate, twenty minutes at the dock

Setting. A dispatch yard handling 25 to 40 outbound vehicles per day with no appointment system.

Problem. Transporters charged detention, drivers left without paperwork, and dispatch overtime was routine — while the docks themselves stood idle for long stretches.

How it was investigated

Time-stamped a week of vehicles: gate-in, dock-in, loading start, loading end, paperwork, gate-out.
Found the longest block was waiting for documents, not loading.
Found arrivals clustered in a three-hour window because everyone was told 'morning'.

What was changed

Introduced dock appointment slots spread across the shift.
Prepared delivery paperwork before vehicle arrival for confirmed slots.
Put a live turnaround board at the gate so delay became visible to everyone.

Outcome. Turnaround dropped sharply, detention claims reduced and dispatch overtime fell.

Lesson: Measure the whole gate-to-gate time. The bottleneck is usually paperwork, not the forklift.

Illustrative composite of common shop-floor situations — no client names or confidential figures.

Practical template

Truck turnaround time sheet

Time-stamp every vehicle and expose the real bottleneck.

Vehicle	Gate-in	Dock-in	Load start	Load end	Docs done	Gate-out	Total (min)	Longest block
TN-09-1234	08:10	08:55	09:05	10:20	11:40	11:55	225	Documents

How to use it

Run it for one full week before changing anything — that is your baseline.
Chart the longest block by frequency; fix only the top one first.
Publish the daily average at the gate where drivers and supervisors can see it.

Download workbook & KPI template (PDF)

Quick quiz — check your understanding

1. OBD in logistics means:
2. OTIF measures:
3. If 90 of 100 orders are on time and complete, OTIF is:
4. A dock schedule helps to:
5. Proof of delivery (POD) confirms:

Earn your certificate