Ep. #26: Why LODEM Matters

This episode of Right From the Source. Cad Delavu, the Director Product. He discusses the critical loading docks standard. Lotum and why any facility who is a member of Lotum. You're listening to Right from the Source, Expert Insights. productivity, energy savings, and the energy. environmental control. Your industrial or commercial facilities.

This is Right from the Source. And with us today we have Chad Dilavou. Hey Ken, how you doing? I'm doing great. How about yourself? I'm doing well, thank you. Awesome. So first off, uh if you can give us your title with Right Height.

uh your years in the industry and and your specialty and focus. Yeah, I've been with Right Height twenty five years now, uh twenty seven years in the industry. Uh the first two were selling Right Height products for an independent distributor, so I've been doing this a long time. My specialty or my focus right now, obviously I've worn a lot of hats over those 27 years, but right now I'm Director Product Management for Right Hide Products.

Which is really an exciting division to be a part of right now because uh we have the traditional leveler lineup. Uh the restraint lineup which is always fun and exciting to work on. As well as uh Ride Heights new acquisition with scraper systems. So it's a really fun organization to be a part of and it it's good timing to to do a lot of neat

new fun stuff. Yeah. So can you tell us about any hobbies or passions outside of work that you'd like to share with the listeners? I would say I I've rediscovered my love of running here throughout the pandemic. So um that's uh I've I've always kind of tried to take care of myself and kinda ebbed and flowed over the years with how active I am, but the pandemic has been a great time to get out and

uh run and be outdoors. As far as a lifelong passion of mine, I think we've talked about it before. I love taking uh creating experiences for people when I'm with them that encourage them to live life passionately. So uh that's something I'm missing out on right now because A I'm not getting to travel and do stuff a lot and B I'm not with a lot of people. So I can't wait for uh things to start to loosen up a little bit and uh be able to do some of those things again. Yeah, yeah. Don't we all?

So our topic for today, it's about Lodem. So right now, Lodem is in the process of reviewing and updating performance standards for various loading dock equipment. So first, can you share with our listeners what LODUM is exactly, and then get into some of the standards that they're taking a look at? Well LOTEM is the Loading Dock Equipment Manufacturers Association, and that's an industry group within MHI. So a lot of our listeners might be familiar with MHI.

They are the premier industry group for the material handling industry. They are the lead sponsors for Modex and for Promat, so two of the largest trade shows in the industry. And they govern, I guess is the right word, they govern 19 different industry groups. Rightite's been a part of Lotum really since the beginning. Um it's a decades old uh organization. And um we've been fortunate enough to be a part of that uh for a long time.

So you mentioned that uh Right Height does play a role within Lotum. Uh can you talk about who Right Height's representatives are with Lotum? Sure. Currently Brad Stone serves as the chair within Lotham. And that is a typically a position that rotates every two years. Brad's in his third year because of the pandemic. They didn't want to uh disrupt the leadership of the organization.

Uh so Brad is on for another year as chair. I also serve as right heights representative on that in that group as well.

Can you tell us a little bit about what role LODEM does play in the loading dock industry? Yeah, I I think the role that Lotum plays is maybe different for the organ the member organizations than it is for some of the consumers and that's kinda where I want to focus today is is what role they play for the consumers. The biggest thing I think is it provides a unified voice. for loading dock manufacturers to

engage with other organizations to get clarification on how they might treat some of our equipment. Now that's a mouthful and it might seem confusing, so an example of that is OSHA mandating runoff guards on pit style dock levelers because in a above dock position You could have a scenario where a forklift might fall off of the side of the loading dock. Well

If OSHA mandated runoff guards on all pitch style levelers when the when the levelers are in the stored position or flush with the floor, you've essentially added a trip point for a pedestrian on either side of the loading dock, right? So When organizations come through with standards or regulations that really don't make sense in the industry, it gives us an opportunity as a group of manufacturers to go forward and try to get clarification on those regulations.

and really try to make sure that it has the best interest of the end user or the customer in mind. Another thing that is really important for the consumer are the standards. It allows Lotum to establish agreed upon standards for the type of equipment that we all manufacture.

So can you tell us what uh some of the Lotum testing standards are and why consumers should care about them? You know, I think the biggest thing why consumers should care is that it gives them a uniform performance. standard. And that's really designed to protect the consumer. You know, there are lots of places in our lives where we have uniform standards. I think of a gas pump with the Bureau of Weights and Measures, right?

You wanna make sure not only that you're selling gas, it's the right octane you say it is, but when you buy a gallon of gas, you're getting a gallon of gas and it's charging you per gallon what a gas pump says it's gonna charge you. all that kind of stuff. It's very similar when you get down to performance standards in loading dock equipment. Let's agree to a set of standards.

that we all can design our products to perform to. If I go to the Lodum language that they use, and and I'll read this kind of verbatim just so th our listeners get an understanding. The standard serves as a guide for designers, manufacturers, sellers, installers, owners, users, and governing bodies of dock levelers. So we're talking dock levelers specifically here. To provide a uniform means of comparison for dock leveling devices.

The important phrase for me in all that is to provide a uniform means of comparison. You know, a long standing practice in the industry is capacity. And this goes back to the nineteen fifties when a dock level alert was invented. And more like a bridge, right? I mean a dock leveler is a bridge and bridges had ratings. So the dock leveler industry kind of followed suit with that. You fast forward now, what, sixty years, seventy years into the industry.

Uh you think about a 50,000 pound capacity rating on a dock leveler, does not mean you can take 50,000 pounds over that dock leveler. It really harkens back to the 1950s and sixties when there weren't performance standards in place. You know, when you're thaw talking about what doc level to recommend, there's so many variables you need to consider. You know, how many shifts is that customer?

performing eat each week. How many trailers are they servicing each shift? And by trailers I I mean full trailer. And how many days a week are they uh working? What's the total weight of their forklift and the load and the attachment and and the battery and all the things that go onto a forklift? What's the angle of the dock leveler into the back of the trailer? I mean all of these things matter with which dock leveler any given manufacturer is going to recommend.

So because of these variables, there really isn't a good way to say, hey, that's a blank capacity leveler. But it's pretty easy to say based on all these variables, we've designed a dock leveler that will perform to the standard For all of those variables. And that's really what Lotum has done. They partnered with ANSI and said: hey, given a defined set of variables and defined set of criteria.

Can you design a doc leveler, test it, and certify it that it's going to perform to meet the standards that you would expect a doc leveler to meet, given those variables and those parameters? So not just one uniform blanket thing, something that's gonna be specific hopefully to a a certain set of variables and and that specification that a facility will need. And the testing criteria is very specific about what each organization needs to go through in order to gain that certification.

I think that's really important because over the years there have been a number of different standards. I think going back to 1978 was the first time ANSI got involved with establishing the standard. And back then a lot of it could be done with rational analysis. So you could have somebody say, Well, rationally this is designed to perform.

uh within the to to meet the specification. The standards as they exist today, uh and you mentioned that they're being revised, uh, we are in the middle of that revision Um and we've all agreed in Lotum that we need to continue to have a performance standard that is tested and certified. So today you have to have a professional engineer actually test. To the standards and then uh certify that that particular doc leveler has performed to meet or exceed the standard.

Without getting into the the granular specifics.

Can you talk about what this certification looks like to a potential customer? How will they know that it's been certified? Any LODOM organization that has tested and certified Their products has documentation on fire. So I do want to point out it's probably not every single dock leveler they manufacture. There are variables in dock levelers, right? There's a 16-inch lip versus an 18-inch lip versus a 20-inch lip.

But the uh structure of the dock leveler, the makeup of the dock leveler, any uh LOTOM member who's gone through that. testing and certification will have physical documents that they can provide you with a stamp from that professional engineer saying I witnessed the testing and it certified it passed.

And I think that's a really important aspect when you are out there uh getting bids on dock levelers, for example. There are companies out there that don't Have the certification, haven't gone through the testing. And they'll tend to what I what I would consider playing games with capacity. They probably don't consider it that because they don't have the certification to fall back on.

But if you are a consumer and you're buying a dock leveler and you demand the certification, hey, I only want to buy certified dock levelers, you know that you're comparing apples to apples. Right? If you allow capacity or uh different ratings from the manufacturers to come into play, essentially you're putting yourself right in the middle of all of these games. Let's say you've got a 16,000 pound load. Manufacturer A might say, well, we use a comparative industry rating of 2.5.

To determine what capacity level you need. So we're going to take 16,000 pounds times 2.5. If my math is right, you need a 40,000 pound doc leveler. Well, you get to company B, Manufacturer B, and they might say, Well, we use a comparative industry rating of 1.5. So for us, a 16,000 pound load, our 1.5 rating, you need what we call our 25,000 pound capacity DockLoad. And then you get to company C that says, Well gosh. We might just use then forty is the biggest number out there.

So we're gonna use a rational analysis going all the way back to nineteen seventy eight when the original ANSI standard was was established with MHI. And we're gonna call our use rational analysis to quote you, our forty thousand pounder that passed the rational analysis back in nineteen seventy eight.

And this is all a game in the sense that everyone knows they're up against somebody else. So they want to provide the least amount of dock leveler possible because that's going to be the cheapest doc leveler they can provide, right? But as a consumer, you have no idea if you're comparing apples to apples. Because there really isn't any such thing as a forty thousand pound capacity dock load. So when you say to a uh the bidders, hey, we want your ANSI MH 30.1-2015.

certification that this doc leveler will meet the criteria that we've laid out, all those variables we just talked about. That's the doc leveler we want you to quote. You know you're comparing apples to apples across the board. One thing for consumers out there to be aware of is that some of the manufacturers who have not done the testing will put on their website, they'll put on their spec sheets, that this particular piece of equipment is designed to meet the standard.

Designed to meet and certified that it has met are two completely different things. It kinda goes back to that original nineteen seventies. version of rational analysis. You know, if you're buying something that's designed to meet, they haven't invested the time with a professional engineer and done the testing to make sure that we'll actually perform in those set of variables.

The most famous example I can think of is the Titanic was designed to be unsinkable, right? And the sad part about that is in the very first field test it ever faced, it failed with horribly catastrophic results, right? And that

certainly is being dramatic when it comes to dock equipment, especially a dock leveler, which probably isn't gonna fail so catastrophically that it takes somebody's life. But a vehicle restraint's a different story, right? You're buying a a vehicle restraint The sole purpose you're buying that is to save somebody's life.

And if you're buying a piece of equipment that's designed to meet the standard rather than has met the standard as certified by a professional engineer, you're really kind of taking a risk with the safety that you're providing for your employees.

So for consumers, what are some of the basic things they can do to ensure that products they're purchasing and and using are of exceptional quality? I think there's two things they can do to really help uh protect themselves in the purchase they're making. The first would be to only buy from a manufacturer that's a member of Lotum.

You can go to MHI's website, there's an industry page there for Lotum. You can get a list of all the manufacturers that participate. Um if they're not on that list, I would be very leery about buying from them because they're not at the table with the other manufacturers. They're not talking about Industry trends.

Um they're not they're not working together on some of the things I didn't mention, standardizing on signage, standardizing on language within owners manuals to make sure that we're really doing the best as an industry to help protect the consumers, right?

So if if they're not a member of Lotum, they're not at the table having those conversations. And that would be something that would be concerning to me. I think the other thing is we mentioned dock levelers and vehicle restraints briefly. Lodum also has a standard for dock boards. uh portable dock plates. So I think anytime you're buying any of that equipment, A you're buying from a LODO member and B you're asking for the certifications to make sure that you're comparing apples to apples.

And to make sure that you're buying something that has been tested to perform in that application, not just designed to perform in that application. This discussion of Lotum has kinda made me wonder are there other groups that Right Height is affiliated with that customers should consider when purchasing other kinds of equipment at their loading docks or otherwise?

There absolutely are and and our level of involvement with those groups kind of varies. On our website though, on the About Us page, there is an affiliations page. interested parties can go there to see it's probably a dozen or s or so listed there. Um some that come to mind though are the National Safety Council. OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program, affiliated with the Robotics Industry Association, the Global Cold Chain Alliance, the American Institute of Architects.

You know, the list list goes on, but there's a full list of them on our website. Um I think as a also as a consumer, uh we mentioned Lotum is in the process of updating those standards. Probably gonna be another two years or so before those uh come out, but the same thing's gonna ring true. Once those new standards hit, be asking for the what the standards are, what the certification is and make sure you're buying quality products.

Well thank you for the insights, Chad, on Lodem coming right from somebody who is serving on the the board right now. So folks, Chad knows what he's talking about here. And uh be sure to follow RightHide on all social media platforms for this podcast and others. And you can visit RightHight.com for additional information or to connect with a team member on other topics. Thanks again, Chad. We appreciate your time.

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