Customer case · Transport and logistics

GLS customer case: 111 bay screens
at the Paris Sud hub

Nobody makes up the screens at a parcel hub in the morning. Each one shows the state of a loading bay — destination, end of loading time, status — and that state comes straight from the yard management system. Here is how 111 screens settled into the daily run of a site commissioned in 2024.

111screens installed
1screen per loading bay
2024hub commissioned
0manual data entry

The client

GLS France and its Paris Sud hub

GLS logo

GLS France

Parcel delivery · Transport and logistics

Paris Sud hub · 111 screens

GLS France carries parcels for businesses and private customers across the country. Its hubs are the points where loads are put back together: a lorry arrives loaded for one region and leaves loaded for another, and everything hinges on the time spent at the bay.

The Paris Sud hub, at Le Coudray-Montceaux south of Paris, is a latest-generation site commissioned in 2024. GLS France chose to develop a display system there jointly with EMITY, wired into its yard management system — the tool that knows, at any moment, which vehicle is on which bay, bound for where, and until when.

With 111 screens across the site, this is one of the largest estates EMITY has installed in logistics.

On site

Three screens, three jobs

These three photographs were taken at the hub: they show the screens as installed and the interface as it runs, day in, day out.

Loading bay doors S16 and S17 at the GLS hub, each with a screen above showing the bay number and the end of unloading time

At the end of every bay

Every bay door carries its own screen. Bay number, destination, end of loading time and a colour-coded status: the operator reads what matters without leaving the floor.

Indoor screens

Outdoor totem at the GLS hub showing the departures board, with a QR code for drivers

Out in the yard, for drivers

Outdoor totems list departures the way an airport board does: time, destination, haulier, status. The QR code at the foot lets a driver carry the information away on a phone.

Outdoor totems

GLS bay screen showing the destination and end of loading time, overlaid with a red « vehicle movement » alert banner

And when a vehicle moves in

The same screen switches to a red alert as soon as a yard vehicle works the bay. The message reads from a distance, through the noise, and nobody has to trigger it.

Safety alert

Worth knowing

Two languages on the same estate

Look closely at the two photographs above and you will notice something: the bay screens inside the building are in French, and the totem out in the yard is in English.

That is deliberate. The bay screens are read by the site teams. The totems are read by drivers who come in from across Europe, and who have no reason to speak the language of the country they are unloading in. Same estate, same platform, same yard management system behind it — two audiences, two languages.

It costs nothing to set up, because the language belongs to the template, not to the screen. A site running lorries from six countries can put the driver-facing displays in English and leave the operational ones in the local language.

  • ✓Bay screens in French — read by the operators who work the floor.
  • ✓Driver totems in English — read by hauliers from across Europe.
  • ✓One system behind both: the language is a property of the template, not of the hardware.
  • ✓Nothing to re-enter: both draw the same live data from the yard management system.

The principle

A display with no content to prepare

In a shop or a reception area, digital signage broadcasts content: an offer, a piece of news, a menu. Someone puts it together, schedules it, refreshes it.

At a hub, none of that applies. A bay screen does not show a message: it shows a state. Which lorry is on the bay, where it is bound, when its load must be finished. That state already exists in the yard management system, and it changes by itself, several times an hour.

The display then becomes an output of the information system, in the same way a dashboard or a terminal is. Which changes what you should expect of it entirely.

  • ✓Freshness of the data outranks looks: an accurate but plain screen beats a handsome one that lags.
  • ✓Legibility at a distance drives the layout: a bay number and a time, very large.
  • ✓Availability counts double: the hub runs when the offices are shut, and nobody reboots a screen at three in the morning.
  • ✓Consistency becomes critical: across 111 screens, two different templates are enough to sow doubt.

What is running

Five jobs, one estate of screens

All of them run on the same platform, from the same management console: a screen changes role without changing hardware.

A screen at the end of every bay

Destination, end of loading time and a colour-coded status for the movement under way. The information follows the vehicle, not the operator.

Wired into the yard management system

The screens read GLS France’s own yard management system. A bay reassignment made in the operational tool shows on the screen, with nothing typed twice.

Live information for drivers

Outdoor totems list upcoming departures, so a driver knows when the load will be ready without getting down from the cab to ask.

A QR code on every totem

The driver scans it and finds the same information on a phone, then goes back to the cab instead of waiting in front of the screen — and the queue clears itself.

Automatic switch to a safety alert

The moment a yard vehicle works a bay, the screen turns into a full-page warning for the teams inside. An information display becomes a safety device.

In context

The four moments a screen earns its place

These four scenes are illustrations, composed in the EMITY house style: they show moments the hub photographs do not cover.

Lorry driver in front of an outdoor totem showing the departure time, destination and status of his load

The driver knows when to pull away

Rather than waiting for a call or walking over to ask, the driver reads the departure time off the totem on arrival in the yard.

Trailer at a loading bay at night, with a wall screen showing the bay number, destination and end of loading time

At night, with nobody to relay

A hub works when the offices are shut. The screen keeps the bay informed — which is the whole point of a display that updates itself.

Loading bay screen switched to an alert while an operator manoeuvres a pallet truck in the hall

A vehicle moves in, the alert is instant

The screen already installed and already watched becomes the carrier of the warning. No extra hardware, no extra step.

Dock supervisor's office overlooking a sorting hall, with a wall screen summarising the status of each bay

The state of the site at a glance

In the dock office, a wall screen sums the bays up: what is ready, what is loading, what needs someone to step in.

The project

Built with the hub teams

The site was new and so were its processes: there was nothing existing to reproduce, but a precise set of requirements to meet.

1

Joint development

Interfaces, templates and connections were defined with the GLS teams from the design stage, starting from their processes and their operational tools.

2

Rolling out the 111 screens

Bay screens, outdoor totems and the network infrastructure went in alongside the commissioning of the hub, in 2024.

3

Taken up by the teams

From day one, operators and drivers leaned on the screens. They are now part of how the site runs.

The client’s words

“

The screens work and are much appreciated by the teams. Innovative solutions like EMITY’s help us keep the promises we make to our customers.

Samy LEROI

Product Manager Linehaul & Hub · GLS France

Translated from the original French.

On film

The hub at work

A few minutes on site: the bays, the totems, the interface as it runs.

The outcome

What the display does away with

The worth of a bay screen shows mostly in what it saves: journeys across the site, phone calls and questions.

Fewer trips across the site

Finding out how a load was getting on meant walking over to look. The information now sits where the work happens.

Drivers who sort themselves out

With the departure time on display and a QR code to hand, a driver no longer has to collar the bay team to find out where things stand.

Information that is never stale

Because the display reads the operational tool, there is no out-of-date version of the information: nothing is re-entered anywhere.

Does this sound like your site ?

The same principle applies to a warehouse, a parcel platform or an industrial loading yard: digital signage for loading bays goes through the uses in detail, and E-DOCK covers central management of hubs and bays.

Common questions

What logistics teams ask

It does not work that out for itself: it reads the yard management system, which already holds the information. A vehicle’s assignment to a bay, its destination and its end of loading time are entered once, in the operational tool. The screen picks them up and lays them out.

The estate of screens is managed from E-MANAGER, the EMITY console: adding a screen, changing a template or checking that a player is responding takes a few clicks. The content, though, is not typed in there: it comes from the yard management system. Your operations teams carry on working in the tool they know.

The screen holds the last information it received rather than emptying, and the feed picks up as soon as the connection returns. A blank screen would be the worst message on a loading bay: information with a known age, which the teams can read accordingly, beats no information at all.

The hardware is chosen for where it goes. Indoors, professional panels built for continuous running are enough. Out in the yard it is another matter: you need sealed enclosures, brightness that stands up to direct sun and a wide temperature range — which is what the outdoor totems at the Paris Sud hub are.

At the Paris Sud hub, installing the 111 screens followed the commissioning schedule of the building itself, in 2024. The critical path is almost never hanging the screens: it is the groundwork on templates and on the link to the operational tool, which runs alongside the construction.

Yes, and that is the commoner case. The roll-out then goes zone by zone, bay by bay, without stopping the operation. An existing estate of screens can also be taken over: compatibility across manufacturers means you do not have to replace everything to change software.

Let’s talk about your site

Do you run a hub, a warehouse or a loading yard ? Our teams can go through what your screens ought to be showing, and which operational tool to wire them to.

See all EMITY customer cases