Ep. #36: Loading Dock Design for New Construction

Source features Chris Seeley, a regional sales vice president with Right Height. He talks about the considerations. before a new construction breaks ground. You're listening to right from the source, expert insights on safety, safety, industrial or commercial facility.

Listeners, you are listening to Right from the Source. And on this virtual podcast edition of Right from the Source, we have with us today Chris Seeley. Hi, Chris. Hey, Ken. How are you today? I'm doing well. So, Chris. First, give the uh listeners a little background about yourself. What's your position with right height? Yeah, Ken, I'm a regional sales vice president with Right Height. Took that opportunity back in 2018. I joined Arbon Jacksonville as a new equipment rep in 2012.

and then became a new construction specialist focusing on our general contractors here in the state of Florida in 2013 as well. So as it relates to new construction, what can you tell us about your specific focus with Right Height? How do you conduct your job? Over the years, uh as a new construction specialist and and as a regional sales vice president for right height. Uh my main focus and uh specialty was food and beverage and cold storage facilities.

Also dry warehouses and what we consider the big box distribution centers as well. Any hobbies or passions outside of work? College football, enjoy going to the University of Florida games. uh when I can, uh traveling for work and like, you know, spend time with my wife and two daughters, twelve fourteen. And that's uh that's about it. All right. So today's topic will be new construction planning. And obviously

You're you're a bit of an expert on that. So with new construction, it offers a business the opportunity really to design a facility the right way from the ground up. It can also, of course, be pretty daunting. So when it comes to loading docs. With there being no one size fits all method. What are some considerations that businesses should be thinking about?

Ken, I would say, you know, the the overall footprint of the facility, you know, regardless if you're designing a food and beverage or a cold storage, industrial, dry warehouse, the big box distribution center. Um, I would suggest for the architects to plan for growth for that client, plan that overall footprint to give them the space to grow in the upcoming years.

And when you talk about the footprint, let's start on the outside of the loading dock. That's a good point. You know, on the outside, depending on the land that the owner has there. We've got to keep in mind of of the trailers. You know, the the trailer itself is 53 feet long, plus or minus 20 feet for the tractor. So a good practice would give them an overall two times that length. So round it up to 150 feet. to allow that trailer and that driver to uh back in to the dock.

I would also suggest adding maybe 10 to 15 or 20 feet for tight overhead door center lines. so they're not getting jackknifed uh back in the trailers in. Anything about the slope then too? You know, depending on again the land, some conditions can dictate a declined approach. But most facilities we're seeing these days are designed with a level or slight inclined approach.

When I say slight inclined approach, we're talking about a 1 or 2% inclined approach towards the building, and that allows for proper drainage. away from the building for uh rainwater. As a homeowner, I can relate to that. Very good. That's that's right. I would say the next, you know, main thing to look at is the loading dock height. You know, think lower. Some dry trailers and city delivery trailers, depending on where the product's going.

We're seeing trends of the rims and tires coming in lower. So that the dry trailers and city trailers, you know, they're coming at the coming into the dock at a forty six to forty-eight inch trailer bed height. We talk about refrigerator trailers and food and beverage and cold storage. You know, those trailers are coming in at forty eight to fifty inch trailer bed height to the dock. if we're in an area that uh that sees intermodal and overseas containers.

Those are coming in at uh 50 to 52 inch trailer height. Dock heights are also dictated by the level of length. You know, longer the leveler, it decreases the slope in and out of the trailer. So our goal for a proper dock design is always to service the trailers at or above the dock level itself. So we never wanna be below dock, but ideal we wanna be above or at dock level.

All right. So you covered some of the the outdoor space. Can you talk a little bit about the indoor space as it's as we're talking about the footprint of the facility? You know, like I said, planning for growth in the overall footprint, a good rule of thumb is is asking the clients when you're designing these facilities is, you know, what are your plans on staging the material? You know, we're gonna load a 53 foot

over the road trailer is a client going to stage the product to put into the trailer prior to it loading. You know, we're seeing big box distribution facilities with staging areas inside a facility, you know, 65 feet, 75 feet plus. You know, that's just a a you know a good question to ask the client. It's you know, what what are the plans on staging the equipment prior to loading the trailer and giving them enough space to do that? You know, the sixty-five to seventy five feet that I mentioned.

that's measuring from the inside wall at the dock to the racking within the facility or if it's a cold storage facility, it may be to the wall, the next wall that would go into a cooler or freezer section of that facility. Yeah, in some instances in this like specific example, it seems like a lot of that space might seem wasted most of the time. But I mean I've got to imagine that there are benefits that outweigh that that seemingly large empty space.

And that's a good question, Ken. You know, you look at that as wasted space. However, at the dock. A lot of moving parts, a lot of traffic. You know, when you walk into a facility and you see forklifts going in and out of trailers, and you see the product staged there as well, it could become a safety or will become a safety issue with damaging product or personnel, pedestrians, or possibly forklift sliding as well.

It seems like there's really a lot of different designs and considerations at the loading dock. Does it seem to vary at all by industry or other factors? Yeah, absolutely. It certainly can. You know, let's talk uh food and beverage or pharma, cold storage. When you're designing a food and beverage or cold storage facility or even a pharma facility, you might want to think about the drive-thru application, the drive-thru design.

Um this will allow for environmental control, helping to keep the food products at a required temperature, along with on the pharma side or high-end products. When I say high-end products, you know, as far as you know, costing. it could protect against the security of theft.

on those products as well. Kind of going along the food and pharma line too. Environmental control, I imagine, is a big piece of it. Are there warehouses with a variety of products that might want to look into those kinds of considerations too? shipping and receiving on a what we consider would be a dry warehouse or part of it would be a dry warehouse and half of it would be or a portion of it would be a refrigerated warehouse.

the refrigerated products require certain temperatures. In that case, you may look at a refrigerate dock designed around a dry-thru style application. And then your dry products, whether it be raw materials or dry products coming in. We'll do design around a pit style level.

So with the idea of cross-stocking with shipping and receiving separated, does that factor in at all to to food facilities? Yeah, Ken, it does. You know, most facilities will have a shipping and receiving side of the business.

you know, depending on the the type of the facility, you may want to see the raw materials come in the receiving side and the finished product leaving through the shipping docks themselves. When we're thinking about food facilities, you've got to keep in mind that separation is important. We're receiving raw materials in the receiving side and then also shipping final products, ready to eat products.

through the shipping side. So the separation is very important there. You know, getting that product ready to ship to stores, customers, direct, things of that nature. Now that we've talked a little bit, sort of set the stage here, talked a little bit about the areas around the loading dock, let's dive into some of the the fun part here, the designing a loading dock.

Are there any trends that you've seen uh with new construction especially that can affect the design? Yeah, absolutely. You know, like I mentioned before on the the city trailers and the over the road trailers, we're seeing the tires and rims coming in. at a smaller diameter than we have seen in the past years. And that would affect your loading dock, you know, the the dock height itself. So when designing that, it's very important to talk to the client.

and get an idea of what kind of trailers, what fleet they're using, and how they plan to load and unload those trailers as well. So mentioning the dock height, what about the dock openings in terms of the the width? Are they getting skinnier there or are they getting wider? What's happening there? In a perfect world, we'd like to see a fourteen foot centerline, especially on a drive-thru application.

But regardless of what type of facility you're designing for the client, it's always a good practice to include some sort of dock enclosure. You know, this can be a standard dock seal or dock shelter, depending on the types of trailers. And again, that's asking the client of what type of fleet they have, whether it be over the road, containers, refrigerated. And we would have the you know proper and dock enclosure at the dock itself.

And obviously the an enclosure would be very important for a a drive-through design, um, as well as some other pieces of equipment which you can hear about on another podcast, but I'd love for you to to shed a little bit of light about you know that drive-thru design and and what you're seeing trending across uh the the country and and really the world. Yeah, you know, the drive thru has become a very popular application over the last, you know, ten, fifteen years.

Where, you know, it allows for not only food products to stay at temperature because the trailer's backing up, the trailer doors are closed. The dock intendant opens the trailer doors into a refrigerated facility, but it also allows the employees on a non food or non refrigerated product it allows the clients' employees to remain in control of that product.

they remain in control of that product by removing the trailer seal prior to unloading after that truck driver backs into that that dock position and then they also place that trailer seal on the trailer prior to it leaving. So when it gets to the next, you know, stop. that seal has been placed on the trailer security wise by the the client's employees. When designing again in a new construction environment, that's a a great time to think about that drive through doc design too, is it not?

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it's it's not just, you know, temperature control. It is, you know, it's security against theft of of the product, you know, especially on some high-end products or any pharmaceutical product.

So now when when looking at the loading dock, what types of equipment actually goes there? Is it as simple as getting a a door and a vehicle restraint and a leveler or what what kind of goes into it? You know, again, going back to our previous conversation, it's it's important to understand your your clients unloading and loading intentions along with the types of trailers that they're going to be servicing. For an example, you know, live loads versus spotted trailers.

during live loads the the tractor itself remains connected to the trailer, allowing for a vertical barrier. to prevent that trailer or that truck driver from early departure or the trailer from uh what we call trailer creep separating from from the dock itself. During a spotted trailer, the tractor is removed from the trailer itself. So that it's just the trailer sitting at the dock.

So you may want to ask your client, you know, if you're working on a, you know, staging the trailers at the dock, we would recommend a a hook style restraint. And that would help protect against all four types of accidents at the dock itself as well. You know, some smaller facilities that service City deliveries. We're seeing, you know, liftgate style trailers, which they do not have a rear impact guard.

So a wheelbase restraint would be required to secure that trailer at the dock by engaging the tandem wheels on the trailer itself. That's a really good overview, I think, of a lot of the vehicle restraints. What about uh leveler options and some of the applications that your customers could be looking at? Just like the restraints, you know, we have a wide range of dock levelers as well, from a pit style leveler, vertical storing leveler, like we talked about with the drive-thru.

Edge ad levelers, these are both manual and automatic activation as well. When we're talking cold storage for clients, the trend has moved designing the the docs around a drive thru style application utilizing the vertical storing leveler. You know, I drive storage or big box distribution center.

We're seeing a mix between pit levelers and vertical storing levelers, like we talked about before, depending on, you know, the types of product that they uh they're manufacturing. You know, one thing I would think about, Ken, is, you know, power levelers have have quickly become the norm. Over the last several years. You know, when you design a facility, some owners look at the facility as you know a mechanical leveler, but the push-button levelers are safer and less maintenance.

therefore lowering the overall lifetime ownership of that equipment itself. And I understand that you can put those into a loading dot controls for, you know, safe sequence of operations. Can you talk a little bit about that in the control boxes that companies should be looking at in new construction? Yeah, absolutely. You know. Yeah, right, hate we're we're a safety company. Um we're always looking at a safe way to take you know human error out of a situation with a combined control box.

We can actually power in the overhead door, the dock leveler, the vehicle restraint, and the trailer light itself. And then sequence that operation. to where a trailer backs up, the vehicle restraint is engaged by the dock attendant, giving the red light on the outside, the green light on the inside, letting the dock attendant know that it's safe to enter that trailer.

Then they open the overhead door, place the leveler in the back of the truck, load or unload. And then what they'll do, Ken, is they'll reverse that sequence when they're finished uh loading or unloading. So they would store the leveler itself, they would lower the overhead door, and then they would disengage the vehicle restraint itself.

giving them a red light on the inside of the building, a green light on the e outside of the building, letting the truck driver know that it's it's safe to leave. And with right height, I know that that safe sequence of operation can actually be programmed into making it sort of like that that foolproof, dummy proof kind of Absolutely. Those those are all programmed in what we call interlock.

Um, so it's not let's say for an example, if it's a, you know, a third shift, night shift where maybe the docket tenant has one pallet to unload. You know, no one's there. Let me unload this one palette. No big deal. Accidents happen all the time. Um with the sequence of operation it forces the dock attendant to follow those proper steps to mainly make sure that vehicle restraint is engaged.

prior to anyone entering that trailer. When a a customer is thinking about designing a new building, they're they've grown or they're changing locations or they're adding a new location and a new geography. And they're thinking to themselves, okay, we're gonna build this facility from the ground up. When should they engage you? When should they engage right height and say, hey, right height, help us out with this?

I would recommend the you know engaging us at the very beginning. It's very important to understand what the client's needs are prior to designing the facility. It'll help save time in the design phase of the facility. And also as right height, we can partner with either the architect or the design build firm.

to bring their employees, their team, their project team up to right height along with their client, the end user, on a fly-in to where, you know, we sit down, we discuss, You know, their clients need. and we walk through all the product like we just talked about in Milwaukee and we explain each step to them. So really a partner from the beginning. Can get all those tips, details, find out all that information like you've been talking about to design a loading dock that's not gonna work just.

Tomorrow, but Ten years from now. Yeah, it's planning for the future. And you said it well, Ken, you know, the partnership. You know, we look at it as a partnership era, right? Height, it's gonna save time in the design side of it. And it's also gonna save time and money once you get to the building phase. So everybody's on the same page at the beginning, right height, architect, design build firm, general contractor, and also client themselves.

So it saves time at the front side of the designing of the buildings to help eliminate potential issues or or challenges throughout the building process. Hear that folks, if you're thinking about making a a new building, building a new building, get right involved right away. Is there anything that we missed, Chris, that you wanted uh touch base on? No, okay. I think uh I think we covered it all. Yeah, appreciate you being on the show, Chris.

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