Asked to handle growing volume with a lean team, a leading home-goods importer moving roughly 20,000 containers a year turned to IMS DCM+ — our drayage management as a service solution — to run its inbound drayage operation. IMS became the team executing the day-to-day, while the importer's own staff shifted to higher-value work.
This case study features a leading home-goods importer bringing in roughly 20,000 ocean containers a year across a national drayage network of multiple carriers, ports, and rail ramps feeding several distribution centers.
Its inbound operation was run by a four-person traffic desk and a supervisor — a capable group, but a lean one for that volume, and under constant pressure to keep up.
Like most logistics and supply chain teams today, the importer was being asked to do more with less — absorb rising volume and complexity without adding headcount. Four specialists and a supervisor were stretched thin dispatching drayage, chasing appointments, managing per-diem and demurrage, approving accessorials, and coordinating empties across the country.
Growing the desk meant recruiting, training, and carrying more fixed payroll — plus covering nights, weekends, and peak-season disruptions. What they needed was more capacity and sharper execution, not a bigger org chart.
DCM+ is IMS' drayage management as a service solution. Where DCM is the Destination Cargo Management platform — the technology — DCM+ pairs that platform with the people to run it: IMS staff execute your business rules and SOP directly inside DCM, as a true extension of your team. The importer applied DCM+ across its inbound drayage operation, and IMS took over the hands-on, day-to-day execution.
IMS facilitates container arrivals, customs clearance, and availability — staying ahead of holds and getting freight ready to move.
Draymen are assigned and the delivery process is managed in the platform per the customer's business rules — prioritizing moves by port/ramp last free day against scheduled appointments.
IMS drives timely outgate from the terminal, arrival at the DC, loaded/empty status, empty pickup, and empty return — the moves that prevent demurrage, detention, and per-diem.
The accessorial charge request, approval, and rejection process is managed systematically — so only valid, approved charges are paid.
IMS facilitates domestic transload, truckload, and LTL moves as a continuation of the same managed workflow.
Because IMS works in the customer's own platform, the team keeps complete visibility and control — they simply don't have to do the manual execution.
The four-person traffic desk wasn't replaced — it was reallocated. Freed from the daily grind of dispatch and exception-chasing, those specialists shifted to higher-value work: carrier and vendor strategy, network planning, and the service improvements that day-to-day firefighting had always crowded out.
The supervisor stayed in command — but instead of running an in-house desk, they now directly supervise the IMS DCM+ team, setting priorities and holding execution to the company's SOP. In effect, the importer gained a larger, cross-trained execution team without adding a single employee. It's a practical answer to the mandate every logistics and supply chain group knows: do more, with less.
A four-to-five person inbound traffic desk runs roughly $300,000–$375,000 per year in fully-loaded salary and benefits alone (about $75K per role) — before recruiting, training, management, turnover, and after-hours coverage.
With DCM+, that execution is delivered by IMS's experienced team for an incremental per-container transaction fee that scales with volume instead of sitting fixed on the payroll. The importer absorbed ~20,000 containers a year of inbound drayage without expanding its team — and redeployed the staff it already had to higher-value work. The output of a full traffic desk, delivered as a service.
Illustrative figures based on a 4–5 person desk at ~$75K loaded each. Your numbers will vary by volume, network, and scope.
Let IMS run your inbound drayage as a service — an extension of your team that scales with volume, not headcount. Request a demo, or model your own savings in our ROI calculator.