Managing Your Business's Docking Area
Warehouse docks can be one of the most important and active portions of your business. As a result, optimizing the flow of work through this area will be essential for management teams. Yet, this can be an area that management teams may not give much thought outside of addressing basic safety concerns and risks.
Include Arrival Schedules For Management
It can be difficult for your dock management team to know whether the workers are remaining on schedule for the day. This can lead to backups and other problems that could disrupt the operations of the business. You can help to reduce the difficulty of managing the arrival and departure of trucks by investing in an arrival schedule display. These systems will allow all of the workers to know when to expect trucks to arrive so that they will know whether they are in danger of falling behind.
Ensure Workers Have The Appropriate Safety Gear
A lack of adequate gear can be another serious problem for dock workers. In addition to increasing the risk of the workers suffering major injuries, this could also hamper their ability to be productive. For example, insufficient equipment could severely reduce the amount of materials and cargo that the workers can move. At a minimum, your dock should have ample back braces, hand trucks and you should consider investing in a forklift or other heavy lifting equipment. By providing your workers with the tools that they need, you can ensure that the trucks coming to the dock are emptied or loaded as quickly as possible. All of this equipment should be inspected periodically. This will allow for aging equipment to be cycled out of use so that your workers always have fully functional equipment.
Consider Installing Retractable Ramps
There can be considerable differences in the height of the trucks that may visit the docking area. This can make it relatively difficult for your workers to easily move items. Luckily, this can be a very simple problem to address as there are automated ramp systems that you can use to provide your workers with easy access to trucks regardless of these height differences. Not surprisingly, you will need to be mindful of the weight of the items that will be transported over this ramp. Otherwise, your workers may exceed this weight limit, which could lead to the ramp suffering damage or even completely failing. In addition to balancing the weight, you should make sure any automated ramp systems are professionally installed to ensure that the risk of the ramp getting jammed or suffering other problems are kept low.