1. The Standard Friction Audit
The standard RAMP Friction Audit focuses on a primary control point: a receiving bay, gate, staging area, or comparable location where arrivals pass through before continuing into your facility.
Within this scope, RAMP identifies your facility's congestion threshold, reconstructs real instability events from your data, estimates the operational cost of observed instability, and recommends specific, low-cost adjustments.
This is RAMP's core service today — well-defined, available now, and delivered using a methodology we stand behind fully.
2. Data Requirements
A Friction Audit requires historical operational data — nothing more.
What we ask for:
- Arrival timestamps at the control point
- Service start and end timestamps
- A review period — typically two to four weeks
- For multi-bay facilities: which bay each vehicle used (if recorded)
What we do not need:
- Customer names or cargo contents
- Pricing, contracts, or revenue information
- Personal information of any kind
Identifiers can be fully anonymized — "Vehicle A," "Vehicle B," or simply numbered. RAMP studies timing patterns, not the parties involved.
3. What Happens Next
Initial discussion — 15-30 minutes to understand your facility
Data review — confirming what is available and what is needed
RAMP analyses your operational data
Your Stability Review is delivered — findings, patterns, and recommendations
Optional next step — Stability Simulation, if forward-looking scenarios would help
4. Facility Eligibility
Before any data is requested, one question determines how we proceed: does your facility have one loading bay behind its gate, or multiple?
✓ Eligible — single gate, one bay
One gate leading to one bay, ramp, or service position. Every vehicle that arrives is served by the same single resource. Fully supported.
→ Eligible — single gate, multiple identical bays
One gate leading to multiple bays — the most common real-world layout. Fully supported. If bay assignment is recorded in your data, full multi-bay analysis is available. If not recorded, RAMP uses a standard dispatch model and discloses this explicitly.
✕ Requires discussion — multiple independent gates
Facilities with two or more separate entry points operating independently are outside current scope. Please get in touch and we will discuss what is possible.
"Does your facility have one loading bay or service point behind this gate, or multiple? If multiple, is it recorded which bay each vehicle used?" — This is the question we ask before requesting any data.
5. Multiple Gates, Bays, or Access Points
Many facilities — distribution centres with several dock doors, terminals with multiple gates, industrial parks with shared access — operate more than one control point at once.
These environments are exactly where operational instability tends to matter most, and we welcome the conversation. A multi-point facility typically calls for a tailored Friction Audit, scoped to how your specific gates or bays interact.
If this describes your facility, the right first step is a short conversation about your configuration. We will tell you directly what we can confidently deliver.
6. What the Stability Review Contains
A Friction Audit produces a RAMP Stability Review™: a report reconstructing real instability events from your data, your facility's congestion threshold, an indicative estimate of operational cost, and specific recommended adjustments.
We classify findings using a four-level system — a clear, qualitative read on where your facility stands:
Stable
Normal conditions absorbed without cumulative delay.
Threshold Sensitive
Stable under normal conditions but elevated sensitivity to clustering.
Elevated Instability
Recurring instability events identified across the review period.
Critical Instability
Persistent breakdown pattern requiring immediate attention.
7. How We Work
We tell you directly if your facility is a strong fit, a tailored fit, or not yet a fit for what we offer.
Estimates of cost and potential savings are presented as indicative ranges, not guarantees.
Recommendations are operator-supervised — you decide what to act on.
Our findings are built from your own data, not assumed benchmarks or industry averages.
We would rather tell you before an engagement begins than after if something is outside our current scope.
Single control point, ready to start?
Multiple gates, bays, or a more complex setup? Get in touch and we will tell you honestly what we can deliver.
Request a Friction Audit Discuss a tailored audit →