A truck can spend the morning at a warehouse and still look “on schedule” on a dispatch board. It arrived at the right place. What the board may not show is the queue outside, the wait for a loading bay and the paperwork still pending after loading.
Before changing the route or asking a driver to leave earlier, identify which part of the visit is consuming time. A few consistent timestamps can turn “that warehouse always delays us” into a specific conversation about appointment slots, cargo readiness or release documents.
Define the clock before comparing the numbers
Use gate-in to gate-out as a clearly named site-turnaround measure. Separately, measure arrival at the queue to gate-out as the total visit time. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions. A warehouse can improve its inside-gate performance while the truck spends longer waiting outside.
Kenya Ports Authority’s Customer Service Charter also expresses truck service measures using gate-in and gate-out boundaries. That is useful context for choosing a precise clock—not a reason to apply a port or inland depot’s service target to every private warehouse.
Record six moments at every collection or delivery
- Arrival at the agreed queue or holding point. The truck is ready to present itself for this job. Record early arrival separately from an on-time appointment.
- Gate-in. The vehicle enters the controlled site. Keep the gate record or driver confirmation as supporting evidence.
- Handling start. Loading or unloading actually begins—not when the vehicle is told which bay to use.
- Handling finish. The physical cargo work is complete. Note any remaining count, inspection or discrepancy review.
- Release ready. Required checks and documents are complete and the truck is authorised to leave.
- Gate-out. The vehicle leaves the site. This may be later than release if there is an exit queue.
Keep the appointment time, site, visit type and cargo category alongside these events. Do not compare unloading a small palletised consignment with hand-loading an entire truck as if the two visits were equivalent. Use local dates and times consistently, including the date when a visit crosses midnight.
A Juja warehouse example: where did the morning go?
Consider this fictional collection. The truck reaches the queue at 08:00, enters at 08:40, begins loading at 09:10, finishes at 10:00, receives release clearance at 10:35 and exits at 10:45. The full visit took 165 minutes. Only 50 of those minutes were physical loading.
| Stage | Interval | Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Outside queue | 08:00–08:40 | 40 |
| Inside wait | 08:40–09:10 | 30 |
| Loading | 09:10–10:00 | 50 |
| Checks and release | 10:00–10:35 | 35 |
| Exit queue | 10:35–10:45 | 10 |
| Total visit | 08:00–10:45 | 165 |
Gate-to-gate turnaround was 125 minutes. The other 40 minutes happened outside. An improvement aimed only at loading speed would miss 115 minutes spent on other stages. The first question is not “why was the driver slow?” It is “which of these stages can the transport team and warehouse change together?”
Capture the reason without guessing who caused it
Use a short reason list: appointment not due, bay unavailable, cargo not ready, paperwork pending, equipment unavailable, quantity discrepancy, or reason unknown. Add a brief note and the source of the explanation. “Driver reports waiting for a forklift” is more accurate than an unverified declaration that the warehouse is at fault.
GPS can help corroborate a visit, but a position beside the site may be a nearby road or holding yard. Weak reception can leave the last position unchanged. Preserve manually confirmed times with their source instead of silently turning a map estimate into a verified gate event. Missing handling times are missing data, not zero-minute loading.
Review comparable visits, not just the worst story
Start with a manageable pilot at one or two recurring sites. Review a week or two of visits, showing the count of complete records and the count still missing timestamps. Separate collections from deliveries and group similar cargo and appointment windows before drawing conclusions.
Look at the median visit as well as the slower visits. An average alone can hide a few exceptionally long waits, while a worst-case story can misrepresent the normal operation. With a small sample, show the individual visits; avoid presenting a precise percentile as a reliable service promise.
- Long outside queues: check appointment spacing and whether trucks arrive before their slots.
- Long inside waits: confirm bay, crew and cargo readiness before releasing the vehicle to the site.
- Long handling: review cargo preparation, equipment and safe handling requirements with the warehouse.
- Long release delays: check whether documents and quantity differences can be resolved earlier.
Put the result back into dispatch planning
A trip plan needs travel time and service time at each stop. For a shared load, a delay collecting Client B’s cargo can affect Client A’s later delivery even though A was loaded on time. Update the downstream plan and communicate the relevant change to each customer without sharing the other customers’ details.
Do not recover warehouse time by pressuring the driver to speed or skip rest. Use realistic appointments, an agreed escalation contact and a revised arrival estimate. If waiting charges apply, review the recorded events against the agreed commercial terms; elapsed time alone is not approval to bill a customer.
You can pilot this method in a shared register before automating it. Assign responsibility for collecting each timestamp once, then reuse it for review. Link the final receipt to the same visit using the proof-of-delivery checklist. The aim is a traceable visit record, not another form that makes the driver enter the same information twice.
Editorial review: September 14, 2026. The KPA charter is cited for its measurement boundary, not as a current performance claim. The warehouse method and times above are illustrative operating guidance, not a claim of automated turnaround reporting in Kora.