The loading bay is potentially fraught with inefficiencies and accidents waiting to happen but a new risk seems to be preventing opportunities to improve matters – the reluctance of banks to provide the funds for investment. It is true that the problem does not apply to large corporations but there are many SMEs who are disadvantaged through lack of investment funds on reasonable terms. This funding reluctance is not only affecting operational efficiencies but also safety procedures and the investment to support them.
Fortunately, some of the more sympathetic loading bay equipment suppliers are offering various financial packages to support companies looking to invest in supply chain improvements. Transdek, for example, is offering customers alternative funding solutions, including several rental options. These involve hire purchase, with ownership at the end of the agreement, and finance leasing for those who do not require ownership.
Some investments for improving loading bay safety are minimal. These include introducing systems such as signs and signals, clearly designated pedestrian routes and barriers, pedestrian crossings and give-way markings. Such low-cost investments in the loading bay safety arena would be foolish to ignore because over a quarter of reported accidents involve workplace transport. Training is also key to cutting the dangers to pedestrians on the loading bay and should not be restricted to truck operators. Fortunately, this, too, is a low-cost investment.
Enforcing speed limits for trucks working near pedestrians may seem obvious and cheap but how often is this observed and, worse still, how often have employees been reluctant to report this and other safety infractions? A recent survey of workers in the materials handling industry shows that as many as 75% of persons see ‘accidents waiting to happen’. Of that percentage only a third said they would speak up about such dangers. Unsurprisingly, the survey showed how commercial pressures often mean that safety issues surrounding forklifts fly out the window. Late deliveries, for example, would see drivers intimidated into driving too fast and lowering or raising loads while on the move. Other simple observations are often overlooked for the sake of operational expediency. This writer has been in many warehouses over 30 years and was appalled at the level of badly damaged pallets placed at high levels within the pallet racking. Such pallets, often of poor quality and from abroad, should be removed from operations immediately on arrival at the loading bay.
The nature of the loading bay operations is also changing and could have harmful effects on safety if the appropriate investments are not made. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the use of double-deck lorries to cut distribution costs sharply. Approaches to the problem vary but as Easilift Loading Systems points out: “Attempting to use the wrong equipment is not only time-consuming but potentially dangerous.”
Transdek offers its V2G modular, hydraulic loadhouse lift, assembled on site in just two days, for loading/unloading two lorry decks from ground level. A similar installation time is required for Easilift Loading Systems’ product based on a scissor-lift operation. Stertil Stokvis’s approach is to use its Retro Dock. It eliminates the need for any civil works to be done and uses the external skeletal frame of the dock leveller it replaces.
Such investments, of course, mean significant sums but the payback from much lower distribution costs and better safety far outweighs them.
Warehouse & Logistics News
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