Ep. #33: Preparing the Loading Dock for Rain and Snow

This episode of Right from the Source features Walt Sweedlick, the Wright Height Director of Customer Relations and Sales Support. He discusses the safety of the Can help reduce that exposure. Right combination of equipment. You're listening to right from the source, expert insights on safety, security, and Industrial or commercial food. Alright, so today's guest we have Walt Sweetley.

So before we get into today's topic, give the listeners a little bit of background about yourself, your uh your title, uh years in the industry. Sure, absolutely. Well, my name is Walt Sweetlick and I'm the director of customer relations and sales support. The Right Height Corporation here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Been with the company for close to forty years, uh focusing primarily on the sales side of the business, working with a variety of our customers.

on uh everything from new buildings to r renovations to safety upgrades, you name it. All right. Any hobbies, passions outside of work, anything that you've been taking up? I do a lot of stuff outside of work. I play a little golf once in a while. I'm a competitive sailor on Lake Michigan. We sail from the end of May through the end of September. So uh just wrapped up that season and uh in the winter I do a little woodworking in my basement. Awesome.

Alright, so today's topic that we're gonna be talking about, Walt, is preparing the loading dock for rain and snow, really any kind of precipitation can obviously cause a lot of challenges at any loading dock. So talk a little bit about Some of those challenges and maybe some ways that uh a facility can protect.

their loading dock from precipitation from getting in. Uh you know, pr precipitation is a challenge regardless of where you are in the country. You know, uh certainly up here in Milwaukee we're concerned about snow in the winter, rain in the summer. But our clients in the southeast, southwest uh southern half of the country concerned about rain year round. Rain on a loading dock or water on a loading dock is is a challenge from standpoint of product contamination.

Slips and trips and falls on wet dock plates, slips and slides for forklifts on wet dock levelers and that type of thing. And just not a real comfortable environment for the uh for the dock dent. So what we wanna do is obviously take a good look at this and and see what we can do to to minimize facilities exposure to the to these issues.

I like to give it a broad look first, meaning a good walk around the building, just take a look at the environment, take a look at the overall condition of the equipment and what have you. You take a look at the installation of the equipment. You know, a lot of us take for granted that if a dock enclosure's been on the wall for five years and it appears to be in relatively good shape, that everything is fine, but It's important to put a good eye on things like

those small cracks can can certainly add up. W what kinds of products can a facility use that can really help mitigate this precipitation infiltration, if you will? Sure, absolutely. So

When we're really looking at the the actual enclosure equipment, the seals or shelters that go around the trailer when the trailer backs into the dock, then we start taking a hard look at what we can do with that equipment to tighten up the overall seal. Yet not affect the access to the back of the trailer. Clearly the big area of concern is the interface between the roof of the trailer and the top of the dock enclosure.

We're doing some really neat things with what we call rain protection, rain guards. That will create a damming effect on the roof of the trailer and prevent the water from ever getting past that curtain. Onto the dock leveler, onto the dock attendant, onto the product or onto the fork. Can you talk and I I know you've already discussed this a little bit, but when that waterfall kind of occurs there, what kinds of problems end up cropping up? I mean it's gotta be just a a a wet mess down there.

Moisture in general is always a challenge for clients, but beyond that Certainly it it depends on your product. You know, if y if you've got uh here in Wisconsin we do a lot of th work in the tissue industry. Tissue and water don't get along real well together, so y you could have product damage concerns in i in that example. We do a lot of work with the e commerce company.

Believe me, consumers do not like to get boxes on their doorstep with water spots all over'em. It immediately gives them a d a perception problem that there might be something wrong with the product inside the box. So we want to do everything we can to keep that Dry. And then certainly from a safety aspect I've got to imagine

that just for the workers themselves going in and out, you're on a metal leveler if there's any kind of moisture, let alone standing water. Absolutely. It it's really tough if you've ever driven a lift truck uh into or out of a trailer. You're usually going up or down a ramp on the dock leveler.

And uh you add a little moisture to that situation. It certainly affects your stopping distances and that type of thing. Yeah, i it's just a a difficult way to maneuver uh on a wet uh dock leveler or dockboard. So, with winter being a major factor for a lot of Right High customers, I'm sure, as the temperatures change. less rain, more sleet, more snow.

Are there different challenges associated with the different types of precipitation and are there different solutions for those challenges? Again, you wanna minimize any infiltration in the building, so you wanna make sure that you're you get a complete seal. Across the top, down both sides, and underneath the uh the trailer and underneath the dock level or make sure nothing blows in at the bottom and that type of thing. And of course we can help you in all all four of those areas.

But I think the the area that we're really starting to explore and really moving into now is getting a better handle on snow accumulation on the Ruffa trailer. We've known for years that you know a trailer's parked at a dock for a day or two with a snow accumulation with a sunny day you're gonna have some freeze thaw situations which are gonna cause some problems again.

moisture on the dock and what have you. But what happens when that trailer leaves and still has that snow accumulation on the roof of the trailer? We've all been behind that trailer on the freeway where that big ice chunk comes flying at our our windshield.

That's dangerous. You don't wanna have that. So we're doing some things to mitigate that as well. Oh yeah, we've definitely all been there driving on those Wisconsin roads. That's a scary sight. With a car it's just kind of annoying and it's like, uh well, I'm behind this guy but uh on a trailer I can't even imagine. So what kinds of things can can Right Hide do to to help drivers get that snow and and ice off a truck?

Sure, we we've got products uh in our lineup now, standalone products that will scrape the snow off the roof of the trailer. And so uh the trailer is serviced at the loading dock, the trailer's ready to hit the road.

Uh the driver will drive through this scraping system, pulling the trailer through the scraping system, and the scraper will literally plow the snow off the the roof of the trailer, as I say, really mitigating that concern about the snow and and ice blowing off the trailer when they're Trailers going down the road at seventy miles an hour. Does it help at the loading dock too, with the shipping, receiving, loading, unloading, etcetera?

if there's no ice up on top of the trailer, does that make things easier or is that not a a major factor there? Certainly it's gonna help with the effectiveness of the dock enclosure, especially again at the at the top. That transition between the the top of the dock enclosure and the roof of the trailer is a critical one and we want to make sure that we maintain a good tight seal there, regardless of what time of year it is. We need to have a good surface to seal to so

Obviously we've got snow and ice in a roof of the trailer's not going to be quite as conductive to uh the seal that we'd have with a nice clean trailer roof. So a lot of our clients will use these scraping systems on both sides of the equation. Trailer coming in off the road, clean the trailer off before it comes into the dock.

And of course if a trailer's been parked at the dock overnight during a snowstorm, get that one cleaned up before it hits the road again. Absolutely. Any other winter safety tips for anyone who might be listening uh regarding the loading dock?

I I think the the the really important thing as I said earlier is to just make darn sure you're getting a proper seal on all four sides. Get it tightened up across the top, obviously that that's critical. We can help you there. But an overall inspection on the the equipment and then

Making sure that it's doing what it's designed to do. And if it's not, uh get somebody to then take a look at it. So if if I'm a facility manager, safety manager, I'm checking these things out, I think, oh maybe I don't have this perfect seal. Can they can they uh do a little virtual tour with you? Oh absolutely, absolutely. We'd love to have uh clients come in and and visit us either in person or virtually.

to take a look at some of these exciting solutions. The important thing nowadays is not to wait. Get this done in uh September and early October. If you wait till November, you wait till December, you're gonna be frustrated and discouraged by long lead times and and all the other supply chain issues that we read about and hear about every day in the news. So uh uh if you can prepare ahead of time you're you're gonna have a winning solution for the winner.

All right, awesome. Well, I think that covers our topic for today. Unless there's anything else that you wanted to mention, Walt, regarding precipitation uh and loading dock. No, absolutely not. I it was great to visit again, Ken, as always, and and appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts on keeping docks dry and safe for the winter.

Thank you. Well it was a pleasure to have you again, Walt. Listeners, be sure to follow RightHite on all social media platforms and visit rightheight.com for additional information or to connect with a team member. If you enjoyed this episode of Write from the Source, be sure to subscribe on your preferred listening platform and follow Right Height's social media channels. Want more supply chain logistics solutions for your facility?