Industrial doors can be a financial pain when they go wrong, not just in terms of remedial costs but also energy costs, loading bay congestion, delayed product shipments and potential loss of business through failure to deliver within promised delivery times, especially critical around Christmas. Yet the distribution industry is still not spending enough in preventative maintenance and even ignore it in winter when the demands on the doors are at their most onerous in what is usually the busiest time of the year. There is also the additional risk that when buying new doors they are poorly specified and incorrectly installed.
Spring may be at the door but before the onset of next winter logistics managers should seriously consider the winter maintenance needs of dock doors, in particular, if they have not been serviced in the last 12 months. It may be a natural tendency to put off door maintenance because “it can be lived with,” says an Assa Abloy service manager, but in winter, especially, that can be penny wise and multi-pound foolish because such cheese-sparing can cause irreparable damage to the doors and incalculable knock-on costs. A thorough winter service should allay any such nightmare fears. But a word of caution. If the doors are made abroad check with your supplier that they always have adequate local stocks of all spare parts. Some UK buyers have been left waiting for repairs because spares had to be imported.
The business of specifying the most appropriate investment is more complicated today because there are so many more door/curtain types on the market with varying performances, quality, costs, guarantees and after-sales service reliability, all of which will be influenced by the nature of the operator’s business. Temperature can be an obvious problem where operations are sensitive to significant temperature shifts, like in the food, pharma and other businesses reliant on narrowlyconfined temperature changes.
Should one, for example, invest in a single, insulated, fast-acting, slatted roller door that acts as both security door and environment controller, or go for a two-door setup, comprising a PVC fast roller door and an outer roller shutter door.
A dual door approach could also involve an outer security door with inner air curtain. When any door is opened to the elements the internal temperature can drop by as much as 10 deg C within moments.
However, with an air curtain the difference could be only one 1 deg C, delivering energy savings of up to 80%. In environments like food and pharma, however, air curtains would be unsuitable because they would be useless as a barrier against pest ingress.
Some of the leading loading bay suppliers like Hormann and Assa Abloy are making the selection process easier by offering a digital platform so prospective specifiers can access product information. This year the Government has stipulated that all public construction projects are to be built using BIM, which is encouraging architects and specifiers to use digital platforms for their work.
Hormann’s sectional and high speed doors are already accessible from the NBS National BIM library and is looking to add its loading bay technology. Designers will be able to install virtually these products that they will be fully functional in reality. This means BIM could significantly cut the potential for error during the construction stage of a project, and so cut the number of incorrectly installed doors. Hormann also offers two RIBA CPD seminars, Specifying the Correct Door, which will help architects identify the best door model for their projects.
Door buyers, however, should not overlook the issue of after-sales service because the quality of the service can vary widely. As a precaution, potential buyers could visit existing user sites to grill the operators on the doors’ reliability and after sales service, and the leading door makers would be willing to arrange such visits.
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