FreightWaves created the AI Excellence in Supply Chain Awards to distinguish companies using artificial intelligence in operationally meaningful ways from an industry backdrop in which “AI” often appears as a broad marketing label in press releases.

The awards are designed to recognize real deployments and measurable outcomes rather than promotional claims. Submissions are evaluated on the strength of the AI application, the depth of its integration into existing workflows, and the tangible results it produces.

This year, YMX Logistics was selected as an honoree in the Operational AI Integration category for logistics companies. The recognition is tied to YMX’s Autonomous Yard Operating System (YOS), which applies AI to the yard, a part of the supply chain that YMX says has historically received less attention and investment than transportation or warehousing systems.

The yard is the physical handoff point between transportation and warehouse operations. Trailers, drivers, gates, docks, labor, safety requirements, inventory processes, and sustainability initiatives all intersect across the same limited operating area. According to YMX, that makes the yard one of the most under-optimized areas of the supply chain.

In YMX’s terminology, “autonomous” does not mean replacing yard workers or deploying autonomous trucks at scale. The company uses the term to describe AI that senses yard conditions, forecasts labor demand, recommends decisions, automates data capture, and orchestrates workflows. YMX says those capabilities are intended to make the yard a continuously improving execution layer.

YMX CEO Matt Yearling has described the change in more direct terms. For decades, he said, yard operations at even the largest shippers often ran on “two channels on a radio and pen and paper,” with little or no visibility into how a yard was sized, laid out, or performing relative to its potential. YMX’s system is built to replace that approach with an operating model that measures itself and improves over time.

Simulation, Computer Vision, and a Digital Twin of the Yard

At the center of YMX’s approach is what the company calls a Digital Operational Twin. The system uses yard data, service requirements, and site-level constraints as inputs, then processes that information through simulation and optimization models before recommending changes to equipment, staffing, or processes.

Rather than deploying technology first and determining later whether it fits the site, YMX models the yard, tests operational alternatives digitally, and validates a plan before making changes on the ground.

The system’s core components include AI-powered yard modeling, decision support layered on top of a yard management system, machine-learning-based forecasting for labor and throughput, automated gate transactions, and spotter-based computer vision that reads trailer numbers and monitors trailer condition in real time. An AI-driven safety intelligence layer operates alongside those tools.

Unlike traditional yard management tools that primarily provide visibility, YMX says its system is designed to improve execution across fleet sizing, labor planning, gate throughput, inventory accuracy, safety, EV charging, and cost.

Yearling has described the industry’s broader progression as occurring in stages: operational standardization, technology enablement, an electrification strategy, and finally autonomous operations, with digital intelligence and physical execution converging at the end of that process.

According to that view, many shippers remain focused on piloting three, four, or five similar technology point solutions without first changing the underlying operating model. YMX argues that skipping the standardization step is a key reason many yard technology pilots fail to progress.

Fleet Cut From 22 Yard Trucks to 14

YMX’s most direct proof point comes from a top-five U.S. grocery distribution network. Before the YMX deployment, the site operated with minimal technology and no real forecasting layer. After YMX implemented its operating model, technology, and optimization approach, the customer reduced its yard truck fleet from 22 units to 14, a roughly 36% reduction, while also improving throughput, safety, and control, according to the company.

For grocery distribution, yard performance is closely tied to frequent replenishment, dock scheduling, trailer availability, and inventory flow. That makes the example relevant beyond fleet count alone: fewer yard trucks can matter only if the site continues to move trailers through the yard without creating new bottlenecks at gates, docks, or staging areas.

The model that produced that result was then expanded from one site to nine sites within six months.

YMX tracks a broad group of operational, financial, safety, sustainability, and scalability metrics across its customer base. Those metrics include dwell time, yard driver productivity, congestion, truck wait time, empty moves, dock utilization, safety incidents, gate throughput, cost per move, asset utilization, and network consistency.

Across its book of business, YMX cites target and observed improvement ranges that include 15% to 30% lower dwell time, 10% to 25% higher driver productivity, 20% to 40% less congestion and wait time, 15% to 25% fewer empty moves, 10% to 20% better dock utilization, and 15% to 30% fewer safety incidents.

The Yard as a Disconnected Link

Enterprise shippers have invested heavily in transportation management systems, warehouse management systems, visibility platforms, and analytics. Even with those tools in place, delays, congestion, detention, labor inefficiency, safety exposure, and rising costs continue to appear across many networks.

The yard, positioned between transportation and warehousing systems, has often remained disconnected. When yard operations are slow, poorly coordinated, or lack visibility, trailers wait, drivers wait, dock doors sit idle, inventory accuracy declines, and service performance can suffer regardless of the technology deployed on either side of the yard.

YMX’s system is designed for that handoff point. It connects trucks, trailers, drivers, gates, docks, yard trucks, and charging infrastructure with a layer of digital intelligence intended to improve operational decisions rather than simply display data. YMX says the result is improved efficiency, resilience, safety, and sustainability, helping shippers right-size fleets, reduce wasted moves, improve flow, optimize EV deployment, and standardize performance across sites.

“What stood out about YMX’s entry is that it doesn’t stop at visibility,” said Adam Wingfield, FreightWaves’ Editorial Director. “A lot of yard technology sells you a dashboard and calls it done. YMX is willing to put a number on what changes when you’re able to act on that data. A 36% fleet reduction is a result that’s easy to verify,” he said.

YMX’s YOS is presented as an operating model shift rather than a single software product. Instead of relying on one flagship feature, the system is tied to specific, verifiable outcomes. FreightWaves said that combination of operational discipline and quantified results aligns with what the AI Excellence in Supply Chain Awards were created to recognize.