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Running a warehouse or manufacturing facility isn’t easy.
Every day, you’re expected to keep product moving in, around, and out the door. Faster. Safer. With fewer problems and zero incidents.
That’s a lot to carry. It can feel like an impossible ask, but we’re here to help make it possible.
On this show, we dig into the real challenges happening on the floor and at the loading dock. Each episode, you’ll hear from industry experts, operators, and problem-solvers who share practical ways to improve quality, boost productivity, and keep facilities running smoothly.
Our goal is simple. Share new ways to tackle challenges that never seem to end so your people and your product get in, around, and out the door safely. You ready to clock in?
Mike Smith (00:00):
Did you know that 25% of the accidents that happen in facilities happen in and around the loading dock? That's
Pat Feeney (00:08):
Not shocking
Mike Smith (00:08):
At all. I thought it'd be higher, honestly.
Pat Feeney (00:10):
What are docks? They're essentially from your facility to a trailer, right? And it's always shocked me that you look at a facility, they're almost looked at as an afterthought.
Mike Smith (00:24):
Clocking in the podcast for people who kep products moving in and out of industrial facilities every day. I'm your host, Mike Smith, director of product here at RDC. Welcome to episode two of The Clocking In Podcast brought to you by the Robert Dietrick Company. I'd like to welcome you to the show, Pat.
Pat Feeney (00:44):
Thank you.
Mike Smith (00:45):
The episode or the subject we're going to be talking about today is the top 10 mistakes we see at the loading dock every year. It's pretty consistent from year to year. But first, I want to give you a little bit of an introduction. You are what I would call an OG, right? You've been in the industry for how long?
Pat Feeney (01:02):
Almost 21 years now.
Mike Smith (01:04):
We probably have listeners out there 21 years old. Tell me a little bit about the different positions that you've held in those 21 years.
Pat Feeney (01:10):
Started off as a service technician. I was that for about 15 years and then five years in management and I've been in sales for about eight, nine months now.
Mike Smith (01:18):
You were a service manager, quality assurance manager,
Pat Feeney (01:21):
Service
Mike Smith (01:22):
Tech installer, you've seen it all.
Pat Feeney (01:23):
Yep. Yep. Now
Mike Smith (01:24):
You're a territory representative. Loving it?
Pat Feeney (01:27):
So far, yeah, I love it. Fun to apply my skillset this way.
Mike Smith (01:30):
In our pilot episode, which was episode one, we talked about what high performing facilities do differently. We had a great conversation with Lisa and this episode we're kind of going to piggyback off that. I think in order to have a high performing facility, which is something we're all after, whether we're running a facility or not, we're trying to do things to the best of our ability. One thing you got to do is look at the mistakes people are out there making. You learn from mistakes. We learn from positive things as well, but sometimes mistakes are the best teacher. So this episode, we're really going to focus in on what those top mistakes are that we see people make every year and we hope people can avoid them. Let me ask you this to start with in 21 years, what's changed about the kind of mistakes you see out there, specifically in and around the loading dock, or has it pretty much remained the same?
Pat Feeney (02:27):
I'd say what's changed most is the nature of the mistakes. It mostly revolves around, and it's happened over the last five or 10 years, personnel. Turnover rates, it's really hard to find good people that stick around for a long time. When I first started, 17, 18 years old, there were fork truck drivers that had been there for 20 years. Now if you get year two or three out of a fork truck driver, that's pretty solid. So if you're dealing with less experienced people that don't know how to use the equipment, probably care a little bit less about the facility and their job. Most of the mistakes I feel like revolve around that.
Mike Smith (03:04):
COVID definitely taught us a lot about turnover.
(03:07):
I mean, the labor crisis that went on, there kind of was like an exodus of people seeking out these types of careers. And you're right. I think turnover, just the subject or issue of turnover does have a lot to do with the types of mistakes we see in and around the loading dock every year. Let me ask you this. Are most dock equipment mistakes about the equipment itself or about the people operating them? Where do you see the most error? Is it like things not surveying and specing things right or is it more about people just not knowing how to use it properly?
Pat Feeney (03:39):
Obviously it's both, but I'd say it's more people not using it correctly. That's one of the things that we've been doing over the last five, 10 years is like, how do we put controls in that can eliminate these variables that lead to accidents or failures or whatever? Yeah, it's definitely a combination and they all kind of lead to themselves too. You have the wrong equipment in there, people they're not going to use it correctly. They're maybe not going to get trained on it like they should. So it all just kind of just makes it worse and worse and builds off itself.
Mike Smith (04:10):
What mistake do you see out there again in and around the loading dock that you would say like some facilities are embarrassed to admit they're making it. Is there something that stands out to you that people just don't want to admit or fess up to like, "Oh man, we know that issue exists, but we almost don't want to acknowledge it.
Pat Feeney (04:28):
" There's really two. The first one's an easy one. Do you guys do PM on your equipment? And they're like, "Yeah, we do it ourselves." And you look at the equipment immediately like nobody's doing anything correctly on this. And the other one is a lot of the times they require catastrophic circumstances before they'll make changes and rather than- Unfortunately. Yeah. And the policy really should be their equipment, their corporate policy should try to prevent those circumstances. But a lot of times it takes an accident or a failure before they'll make a change that they known they should have made years ago.
Mike Smith (05:02):
Have you seen old school? We got to climb in the truss tree real quick. If you tell me a mistake you've made out in the field, I'll tell you a mistake I've made. Full transparency. This is really embarrassing, but one time I won't say where it was. Luckily the customer was so cool about it and gracious, but I started installing a door on the wrong opening. Now I was given some bad information, I will say that, but got the door about installed and realized it needed to be over there, not here. So luckily it had a happy ending, but not one of my finer moments. Mistakes happen.
Pat Feeney (05:42):
Yeah. I've never made any mistakes.
Mike Smith (05:44):
Oh, next.
Pat Feeney (05:46):
The most embarrassing one I've ever made was pulling a vertical leveler RHV up with a fork truck and I was making deck weld repairs and immediately switched to the curb and didn't move my ground. And of course, burn the motor up, burn the harness up. I was young. It happened
Mike Smith (06:05):
Though. Dude, thanks for opening up, man. I just thought it was important to sneak that in there. We're not coming at people like we've never made mistakes. We make mistakes too. And you learn from them and you get better,
Pat Feeney (06:16):
Right? Yeah. And you are probably like me. You lose a lot of sleep over it. Anytime I made a mistake and I still will, it bothers me.
Mike Smith (06:25):
It's so embarrassing. Hopefully we make little mistakes. Some of the stuff on this list though are pretty big mistakes, right? You've been on the side of mistakes that you've made yourself, customer mistakes, maybe mistakes from other companies who have commit and put equipment in. How has that history, 21 years of seeing mistakes, helped you in your current role today as you're out there advising customers and speccing equipment now and helping people find solutions?
Pat Feeney (06:55):
With my experience and like you said, seeing all the different sides of it now, I kind of know what direction people need pushed. So I just try to give them all the information, try to be as honest with them as possible. Here's what you're looking at and here's one option, here's another option. Give them the positives and negatives either way and you just hope they make the right decision. At the end of the day, it's their decision. My job's to give them the correct information, advice that they want it and go from there.
Mike Smith (07:24):
And I bet people appreciate having the tenure and
Pat Feeney (07:28):
The
Mike Smith (07:28):
Track record there to
Pat Feeney (07:29):
Fall back on. Oh yeah. Yeah. Knowing what I talk about, it helps a lot in this new role for sure.
Mike Smith (07:34):
All right. So great team huddle. Let's, metaphorically speaking, head out to the floor. We're going to do a little floor walk and get into that top 10 list.
Pat Feeney (07:42):
Put your PPE on first.
Mike Smith (07:44):
Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, we do. We should have had PPE here to put on. Oh, I did think it was an important statistic to throw out before we get into these top 10. And I'm sure you know this, but our listeners might not. Did you know that like 25% of the accidents that happen in facilities happen in and around the loading dock?
Pat Feeney (08:03):
That's not shocking at all.
Mike Smith (08:05):
I thought it'd be higher, honestly.
Pat Feeney (08:07):
Yeah. I mean, what are docks? They're essentially bridges from your facility to a trailer, right? And it's always shocked me that you look at a facility, they're almost looked at as an afterthought. It's not really their primary focus. They're focused on their production equipment, this and that. And the docks and doors are usually one of the last things they're addressing, but it's statistically one of the biggest liabilities.
Mike Smith (08:32):
Yeah. I mean, you got 10,000 pound trucks flying around, people, you've got blind spots, product being staged. You ever watch Interstellar when they're like at that critical point where they've got to get the ship synced up to the bigger ship and it's like I'm on pins and needles every time I watch it. But when a truck backs into a dock position, that trailer becomes an extension of the building. And it's just like you said, like, "Hey, I got an idea. Let's put a ramp into that thing and let's drive a 20,000 pound load across it. " It's dangerous. Things happen. So the loading dock is a place where we really can't afford to have mistakes. We've got to learn from those mistakes. We can't afford to have any out there because it's so dangerous.
Pat Feeney (09:13):
And you'd hope you see the mistakes before they happen and you can address them. It's not always the case, but yeah. And usually those mistakes are pretty costly for property and people.
Mike Smith (09:24):
All right, we're going to go through the top 10 things we see every year. We're going to give people some great practical advice that they can follow and hopefully avoid some of these mistakes. Let's start with number one. Underrated equipment at the loading dock might be one of the top mistakes that we see all the time. It's either under capacity or not high cycle enough. Talk to me about that. How do I know whether I have the correct capacity or how do I know that my equipment is rated for what I'm doing? Is there like a formula to follow or how can I know that?
Pat Feeney (09:59):
Yeah, there is a formula for especially dock leveler capacities, but I really see this is super common in people leasing buildings. They sign a lease and they don't know what kind of dock equipment they're getting. They get in there and maybe it was a spec warehouse and it had the most basic, I won't say their names, but most basic dock level which you can possibly have and it's just not good enough for what they need to do. And downtime, injury, accidents, it's a big problem.
Mike Smith (10:29):
Yeah. People don't realize that's a great example of someone moving into a space they've never occupied. Well, the levelers were fine for the previous occupant. Well, yeah, they had 10,000 pound trucks and they had 2,000 pound loads.
Pat Feeney (10:43):
They had three trucks a day. One
Mike Smith (10:44):
Trailer a day. But you move into this space and you've got 15,000 pound forklift, 5,000 pound battery and you're getting 24 trucks a day over the course of three shifts and your heaviest load is 10,000 pounds. You need a different piece of equipment to drive across and people don't realize that. There's a formula for calculating that. That would be a huge mistake we see every year, like having underrated equipment and great scenario there moving into a leased space. One other thing I want to call out on this point is talk to me about companies not looking far enough into the future. When you're at a crossroads and you need new equipment, right, your needs right now might say, "Hey, I need a 40,000 pound dock leveler and I need this and that. " Give us some advice on thinking five or 10 years into the future though.
(11:37):
Should I like overrate or overcapacity that equipment because I know in five years I'm going to be getting an engine block line coming into my facility and I'm going to have heavier loads. Should I prepare for that ahead of time? Is that something that you see every year is a mistake?
Pat Feeney (11:52):
Yeah. I mean, you always want to plan on you and hopefully business is good and you're going to need more capacity down the line. I met with a customer a couple of days ago that wanted to move a smaller door into a bigger opening and build the opening down. And I convinced them, I'm like, "You don't know. Maybe you don't need 14 feet right now, but in five years you might. You don't want to remove that capability." So yeah, generally speaking, you don't want to limit yourself in the future. You want to plan on growth, plan on things going well and go for the higher capacity, go for the larger whatever it is typically.
Mike Smith (12:28):
All right. Number two, and you've already talked about this once, so we probably don't need to park on it too long, but this is uber important. Another mistake we see every year is skipping or even deferring on preventative maintenance or not doing it frequently enough. The data shows us that when you do preventative maintenance faithfully, you could be saving five to 20% on energy costs and you could be saving almost up to 20% on service costs. So it's very, very important, not to mention warranties and safety and all the things that factor in as far as reasons to do it. But I think a common mistake we see is like you said a minute ago, people saying, "Yeah, we do it. " But then you go out to the loading docks and you can tell like, "I don't think they're really doing it. " Or some places just flat out choose not to do it.
(13:18):
Talk to me about that.
Pat Feeney (13:19):
Yeah. Obviously PM's a large part of what we do. I've done a lot of them over my years and it's really important. I've always tried to tell people, you can pay for a PM now and it's going to be much cheaper or you can let those problems keep growing and growing and growing and then multiply and then in five years you have a massive issue. And I've actually, to bring up your COVID example again, I've run into a lot of my customers now that I personally used to do PM for in the 2010s stopped doing PM right around 2020 and we're running into equipment failure after equipment failure now just because they weren't maintained properly. But a lot of our equipment, if you perform PM, you take care of it as you should. You're going to get 10, 15, 20 years out of it typically. And if you don't, depending on your facility, you're looking at like five.
Mike Smith (14:08):
Yeah. Makes a big difference.
Pat Feeney (14:09):
All
Mike Smith (14:10):
Right. Number three, and this is one, again, I don't know how to prioritize some of these. They're so important. I think another mistake that we see at the loading dock is not choosing the proper trailer restraint. We just said a minute ago, when a trailer backs up to your facility, they become an extension of your building and sometimes you go into facilities and you see a trailer being restrained or them trying to restrain a trailer with some kind of vehicle restraint and you can tell right away that restraint was not intended for that trailer. What does a customer need to know about the type of truck they have backing up to their dock so that they can get or make sure they have the right restraint?
Pat Feeney (14:52):
I guess we start with it. It is an OSHA requirement to restrain a truck. Whether it's a wheelchalk, which you can say people do, but it never really happens. GWC all the way up to rotating hooks, hydraulic hooks, GWLs. It really depends on the application where you want to be in. If you're just a standard facility over the road trucks, a rotating hook is a great option.That's the bread and butter. That's what most people have. Maybe you get some seed containers and that's where Rite Hite of sets themselves apart. They have the shadow hook. They have a little bit more capability with how they lock into some oddball trailers or maybe you have a box truck with a lift gate on it. What do you
Mike Smith (15:35):
Do there?
Pat Feeney (15:36):
GWL.
Mike Smith (15:37):
Yeah.
Pat Feeney (15:37):
You got to
Mike Smith (15:38):
Restrain the wheel.
Pat Feeney (15:38):
You got to restrain the wheel and it's the one lockout there that can lock into everything. So pretty much without exception.
Mike Smith (15:46):
So I mean, the best advice we could give people is like know the type of trailer that's backing up to your facility and get your restraints lined up accordingly to the type of trailer.
Pat Feeney (15:55):
Yep.
Mike Smith (15:56):
All right. Number four, man, I'm going to say this every time. I think-
Pat Feeney (16:01):
This is a big one here.
Mike Smith (16:02):
This is a big one and it's become a big thing. It wasn't back when we started and you saw a lot more mechanical operation out there. This wasn't a thing. But number four, a big mistake we see out there is not choosing the right type of interlocks to get the desired sequence of operation you want. Talk to me about that.
Pat Feeney (16:20):
Yeah. I mean, my favorite thing to do is when I'm thinking about this is look back at what Rite Hite's restraints have done over the years. You go to the LDL 500 and there was no capability. You had to add a relay in. You go up to the SDL and all of a sudden you had a relay. You could put that in there. Yep. And then you have the RHR, which you have a CPU board or an options board you can add in there to add interlocks and now it comes standard. Every single lock they have, Gen two has that control box with that capability built into it. And that just shows you how important that is and how much this industry has started to lean on that capability. And to one of my points earlier, it's a really good way to deal with high turnover rate, personnel that aren't trained correctly, force people to go through that correct sequence.
(17:07):
One of my favorite things, we'll put one of these systems in and they're like, "Well, it takes me forever to run this equipment now." I'm like, "No, your sequence hasn't changed one bit. You're just being forced to do it now." Where earlier you would just raise a leveler and do what you need to do. Now you have two or three steps you have to go through, which you should have always been doing, but now you're forced to do it.
Mike Smith (17:29):
You talked a minute ago in our team huddle about high turnover and you might have a different person every year, every two years, every six months. And it's almost like the industry has tried to people proof some of the processes and safety things out there. And interlocking your loading dock equipment is a way to make sure people are going through the right paces. What's the most important and I'm leading you on this question, I'll admit it, what's the most important interlock at any loading dock if you have a trailer restraint? Greenlight interlock.
Pat Feeney (18:01):
Absolutely.
Mike Smith (18:03):
What's it do?
Pat Feeney (18:04):
Well, green light interlock, I cannot ... Are you included in the door? No,
Mike Smith (18:09):
Just the
Pat Feeney (18:09):
Green light. So truck backs in. I cannot raise my leveler and place it into the truck until I hit my dock lock engage. And I either have to have a good green light or throw it into override and then I can raise my level, place it in the trailer. I cannot unlock my lock until my leveler is stored. And that is how you prevent trailers from pulling out. It's how you prevent four truck drivers from driving into a trailer and going on a little trip.
Mike Smith (18:38):
Yeah. No one wants to go on that trip. No one wants to go for a ride
Pat Feeney (18:41):
In a
Mike Smith (18:42):
Trailer that's departed too early.
Pat Feeney (18:44):
It happens. It happens a lot.
Mike Smith (18:45):
Yeah. If we could give any of the best advice we could give is if you have restraints at your loading dock and you have hydraulic levelers or airbag levers or levelers that are electrically powered and controlled, make it interlocked so that you have to lock the lock first. That's where safety starts in a facility is at the dock lock.
Pat Feeney (19:06):
Even if you don't have a hydraulic leveler, if you have a door with an operator, I can do it with that too. So obviously your leveler's not a part of that function. Great point. But I can make it to where I can't open my door until my lock is locked and you just force people to go through that correct sequence, which they should be going through anyway, but I don't know what the statistic is of 25%, but I bet you that is a really, really high percentage of accidents on docks.
Mike Smith (19:33):
If I'm a facility owner of a facility that has high GMP expectations and I can't have doors open, I think another great interlock at the loading dock is what you just said. Well, you kind of said it. Introducing an interlock so that a door has to be closed before a lock can be unlocked or a leveler has to be stored or both. If you've got a problem with doors being open, birds flying in, pests getting in, you can interlock that all out. You can get rid of that problem and get around a person forgetting it by having a sequence of operation and interlocks.
Pat Feeney (20:08):
Yeah, that'd be a closed door policy. And that's what you see a lot of pharma, food grade. They don't ever want their facility to be exposed to open air. So the door either needs to be closed or a trailer needs to be backed up to the position and then at that point your seal takes over and then you can have an open door policy, but a lot of times at that point you want to bring in what we call a dock guardian or some kind of physical barrier there to keep people from driving off the dock.
Mike Smith (20:34):
Which we are going to talk about here in a minute. All right. Number five, and me and you could probably riff on this for a long time, but another mistake we see at the loading dock is going cheap isn't always better and actually it's not always cheaper in the long run. So when you think about brush seal versus nail on seal, insulated doors versus non-insulated doors, mechanical levelers versus powered, motor operated dock doors versus manual. It might seem cheaper upfront, but you have more costs associated with service, things breaking down, components wearing faster, safety. Talk me through that. I think it's a mistake we see. You get a quote and you think, "Oh, I'm going to go with a cheaper option, but what's the actual cost as time progresses?"
Pat Feeney (21:24):
And that's pretty much what my job is right now. I've had the advantage of I've installed equipment where I've now replaced, it went through its entire lifecycle. So I've seen what that cheap stuff does over the years, how it performs versus the more expensive stuff. And I can give really good educated reasons why you would rather ... And it's not always going to happen. Sometimes there's a budget, you got to stick with your budget, but more often than not, you're better going with the more expensive option and it's going to pay off in the long term. It's going to pay off on maintenance costs. What's one accident, catastrophic accident cost? Right. If it prevents one, and you'll never know if it did. If it prevents one, then you've saved half a million, millions of dollars there. So that's kind of the decision making you have to make when you're looking at that.
Mike Smith (22:13):
So number six, we kind of already touched on this a minute ago when you talked about the Dock Guardian, but another huge mistake we see people make is when they're thinking about ventilation in their facility and fall protection at the loading dock. So here's the scenario. I know that I've got a lot of welding going on in my facility. I've got a turret system that's cranking out smog and fumes and all the things from production. I mean, I really need to get doors up. I got to have doors open. I got to have a movement through the facility so people are cooled off and have good morale and all the things. But when a door is open at the loading dock, what hazard does that present?
Pat Feeney (22:55):
Several. Actually the first one is pedestrians, fork trucks going off the dock. That's a big one, but also security is another one in certain facilities. Great point. Some places you have to have a barrier at that door all the time. It's not a barricaded facility that's open twenty four seven. There's times that you need to leave that door open or it needs to just be secured. So yeah, those are the two big hazards you're looking at. And then bugs, birds, pests is another thing that a screen door could help with. Maybe I need that ventilation, but I can't allow pests to come into my building. So that's another option to look at.
Mike Smith (23:31):
And that's exactly right. I think you got to think through, if I want ventilation, but I'm a GMP facility and I can't have birds flying in, I need to have some kind of bug door, either a RASCO bug door or a bug shield from Rite Hite. I need to have something in the opening to allow ventilation in to keep pests out. And if you don't have the pest requirement and you say, "Well, yeah, I can have doors open. No problem." If a bird gets in here every now and then, no big deal, that's great. But it is an OSHA mandate that four foot fall protection be adhered to or provided at the loading dock because that's a four foot fall hazard. So you need to have something like a dock guardian or a dock gate or maybe even in conjunction with that, a safety lip leveler, because believe it or not, people do drive off the docks.
(24:17):
I hate that it happens. It's embarrassing when it happens. It's dangerous when it happens, but things like the dot guardians and the dock gate and safety lip levelers can help you be OSHA compliant and allow for the ventilation to come in.
Pat Feeney (24:29):
And we can often integrate that into our sequencing. Yes. So that's another thing to touch on there. I can make it a part of my sequence so that I force people to go through that process as well.
Mike Smith (24:41):
All right. Number seven, and this is one I'm really passionate about and having a keen eye on because we're getting into facilities and doing safety consultations more. Not keeping the loading dock area free of pedestrian truck driver interaction. So here's what I mean by this. You walk into a lot of facilities and you have drivers and people coming in from the outside walking into a busy dock environment but having nothing to check them. There's no guardrail around them. There's no swing gate. And when you walk in from outside on a sunny day, like your eyes are dilating, you might be looking at paperwork and you're not really paying attention. And as soon as you break that plane of an exterior door, you got forklifts buzzing by, all kinds of things going on. And a common mistake I see at the loading dock is like not thinking about forklift and pedestrian separation.
(25:35):
So talk me through that problem. We kind of already shared the statistic and talk me through some of the things you can do in and around the loading dock to address that issue. There's a lot of solutions.
Pat Feeney (25:46):
Yeah. So that's a massive issue really, especially buildings that are a little bit older, legacy
Mike Smith (25:51):
Buildings.
Pat Feeney (25:52):
Yeah. Legacy buildings, that's a big one. There was just no really ever differentiation between pedestrian area and PIT areas. Some of these bigger warehouses, it's still an issue, but there's a little bit more space. Yeah, separation from pedestrians and PIT, you don't know who's going to be walking through your facility. You don't really know who's going to be driving your PITs. Whatever you can do to separate those two is extremely important. You have a 10,000 pound fork truck hauling a 5,000 pound pallet going five miles an hour. It's not going to turn out well for a pedestrian. So obviously there's all kinds of options. There's guardrailing is a good one.
Mike Smith (26:30):
Just creating a corral for
Pat Feeney (26:31):
Someone
Mike Smith (26:32):
To step into just to check themselves for like two or three seconds. At least they're entering a protected area. It can be four by four, whatever, as long as it's ADA compliant and doesn't impede egress, but having a safe zone for a truck driver to step into and at least have to acknowledge, look left and right. Whereas if they have nothing, they walk right in and just keep going and they can be on their phone, whatever. I know some people would say like, "Well, we got the same drivers coming here every day. They know the dock and they're familiar with us." But what happens when they're on vacation and you got a substitute driver? I mean, there's just all kinds of scenarios where it's better to have someone have a safe place to step into and be protected, right? Talk to me about pedestrians walking parallel with the docks.
(27:19):
What kind of solutions are out there to keep people safe and aware that a truck or a fork truck is in a trailer?
Pat Feeney (27:29):
There's different options for the fork truck itself and for the pedestrians. Fork trucks, there's all kinds of lighting you can do that help keep the pedestrian aware. There's new AI products out there that have read out to a monitor on the fork truck that lets them know pedestrians are in the area. For the pedestrians, you have obviously guardrailing, which I mentioned you can separate, physically separate the traffic. It's not always an option. There's all kinds of walkways you can put in there, laser walkways. You can put safety signals one of my favorite products. If you have a crossing that shoots that stop sign down to let the fork truck know, "Hey, somebody's coming through or vice versa." Talk to me
Mike Smith (28:09):
About PedView.
Pat Feeney (28:10):
Oh, PedVew. My
Mike Smith (28:11):
Favorites.
Pat Feeney (28:12):
Yeah. My favorite products
Mike Smith (28:14):
Out
Pat Feeney (28:14):
There. So PedView, fork truck drives into, and this is to your point, walking across the dock. For some circumstances, that crosswalk is the dock. People are walking right up against it or right over the place themselves. And if you're walking essentially perpendicular to your trailers, you're not able to see what's going on in there. So PedView, when a truck, a PIT pulls into a trailer, that sensor puts out a blue light on the dock leveler itself showing pedestrians, "Hey, there's traffic at this position right now. Avoid it. "
Mike Smith (28:49):
The forklift blue light in general was one of the best things that ever happened to industry. And then when Rite Hite came out with PedView, again, it's a universal language now. When I see a blue light, I need to avoid it. I just think that's one of the greatest ways to keep pedestrians safe at the loading dock.
Pat Feeney (29:05):
When I'm walking on docks, I enjoy it. Just knowing that you just don't know. I might walk across 50 docks, three of them might be occupied. You'll never know unless there's a PedView there.
Mike Smith (29:18):
All right. Number eight, and we almost started talking about this a little bit ago. I was proud of us for not going down this road because I knew this was coming up. Another common mistake we see is we know mistakes and things are going to happen. Mistakes are going to happen and things are going to go wrong at the loading dock. One scenario is something you already alluded to. Sometimes your trailer restraint might have a mechanical issue or it might be down for service or whatever, or it doesn't latch the trailer. Maybe the trailer has a damaged rig bar or ICC bar or there's not one there at all. The scenario is someone goes up to push lock and we all know what happens. It doesn't lock and We get that annoying beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Something's wrong. A big mistake I see every year at the loading dock, and you can speak to this because I'm sure you've seen it too, is people don't know what to do when that happens.
(30:12):
What do they do?
Pat Feeney (30:14):
It depends on the facility and really what that facility management wants them to do. Because some places you have the horn override. You hit one, two, two, three, or maybe it's just a single button depending on the model. I essentially override that lock. I throw a red light on the outside, flashing red and green on the inside. So light communication that is there and then technically somebody is supposed to chock the wheel of that trailer.
Mike Smith (30:39):
Yes.
Pat Feeney (30:39):
So whether that happens or not, who knows? But I've actually run in a lot of facilities lately that don't want their dock workers or truck drivers to know about that capability. So I'll either change the code for them or put a key switch in there and they'd rather get a manager involved to see why didn't we get a good lock here? Is it an issue with the truck? Is it an issue with the restraint itself or what was wrong with that process? And that's what's great about Rite products right now. It's so programmable. Whatever they want to do, we can find a way to get there.
Mike Smith (31:14):
Yeah. I think I'm so passionate about, like I said, when things go wrong and you don't get a safe hook, what do you do? I don't think people realize the instructions for a dock lock override are right on the cover of the control box and you said it. You got to go outside or utilize lock view if you have lock view camera system. You got to go see what's wrong. You got to put a wheel chock in place and then you have to come in and hit horn override and you can load safely because you've met the minimum OSHA requirement by having a wheel chock in place. Or better yet, maybe your training tells you, "Hey, let's move that driver down to a position where the dock lock is working or where the trailer restraint is working." I think training and teaching people what to do when things go wrong is something that's very needed and it's a mistake we see.
(32:01):
It's a hole we see. Number nine, man, this is a big one. This is a big one. Pushing production too close to the docks, not having enough space after the loading dock. It can create bottlenecks, blind corners because product is stacked up so high, near misses, congestion, accidents, all of the things. I think people are like, especially since COVID, real estate's become expensive. Buying buildings and expanding left to right, so to speak, has become expensive. So people are bringing in new production lines, relying on global supply chain less. They're getting more stuff in their facility from a material standpoint and they got to find that space somewhere. So they either go up or they push things closer to the dock. And when you push all that up closer to the dock, what happens? What's the danger there?
Pat Feeney (32:57):
Well, you're introducing more risk with pedestrians and PITs. The closer they get, the higher likelihood there will be in an accident. You're also introducing your equipment, your production equipment, your material. So yeah, the further you can keep that barrier, the
Mike Smith (33:16):
Better off you'll be. And you typically want really up to like 120 feet of room after the loading dock of nothing but free space, but at least a hundred feet. It's just a problem that's kind of becoming trendy nowadays, like people just trying to find room, bringing in more production lines, whatever it is. And they're finding that space at the loading dock, but they don't realize they're creating blind spots and just more room for accidents to happen. That's a huge problem. Lastly, maybe not lastly, if you've thought of something else, but lastly, what we have on our list of top 10 mistakes we see at the loading dock is not standardizing equipment. If at all possible, we'd love to see customers have the same type of equipment at their loading docks and we walk into some facilities and there's just like a hodgepodge of equipment.
(34:05):
Talk to me about the headaches and pains that that can create for customers.
Pat Feeney (34:11):
Yeah. From several different perspectives. The first one training your personnel to use it. If I have four different models of locks and restraints and levelers and doors, it's going to be really hard for me to expect. They're all going to be operated differently. I have to train them all on each one of them individually. You increase your risk for error. And then I know too from the service side of things, it's so much easier to work on. I can keep parts for one door. I can't keep parts for five doors. I don't have the space to do it. You guys, customers probably don't have the space to do it. So the more you can keep your dock equipment, your door standardized the better lead time on parts you'll have, we might be able to stock parts. The quicker the service will be. In my opinion, it's easier to troubleshoot.
(34:56):
Yeah, it'd just be a better experience all around.
Mike Smith (34:58):
Well, that was a great top 10 list. Let's move into our last segment like shift change, right? You and I clock out customers will be clocking in. After hearing a list like this, what is one practical thing or maybe a couple practical things that someone listening to this podcast could do to evaluate their loading dock?
Pat Feeney (35:21):
First thing I would talk to your personnel. Truck drivers. Yeah. See what they're running into, what kind of issues. Sometimes they're not even using stuff correctly or they don't even know what to do a lot of the time. So talk to them, watch them operate, just spend time with them, understand their process. And the second thing, I wouldn't be afraid to reach out to professionals. I've always been the kind of person like, "I don't need help. I'll get this figured out myself. But this is what I've dedicated my life to at this point. It's 21 years. I understand what's going on there. I can help even if you're not going to use me. I just want to help you with your process." And I think I'm pretty confident I can do that.
Mike Smith (36:01):
Yeah. Whether it's us or another company, if you have someone else taking care of your loading docks, that is great advice. I mean, number one, I didn't think of that. Just go out and talk to the people operating the equipment. What near misses have they have? What pain points do they have? Talk to your drivers.That's a great way to assess where you're at. Secondly, yeah, get with your service provider. They're the professional. Some of them been doing it 21 years, maybe even 30 years. They've seen it all. They've seen the mistakes. They've seen the problems. Have them come out and walk the docks with you and just get a list of deficiencies going and see where you're at. All right. Well, thanks for joining us. It's been great having you on the show. We'll see you out there.
Pat Feeney (36:38):
Thank you.
Mike Smith (36:41):
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