Ep. #39: Loading Dock Solutions for the Pulp, Paper, and Packaging Industry

This episode of Right from the Source features Walt Sweetlick, the Director of Customer Relations and Sales Support. Shines a spot. industry. He shares trends that can help facilitate and solutions to challenges the industry faces. You're in the middle of the year.

Welcome listeners. Today on Right from the Source we have Walt Sweetlick. Walt, welcome back to the program. Hi, Ken. Great to see you again. Yeah, you as well. So before we begin, uh what's your title and uh what do you do at Right Height? Again, I'm the director of uh customer relations and sales support at Rightite. I host our customers when they come in and visit uh to learn more about loading dock and industrial door layout and design.

Awesome. And you've been in the industry a long time. I've been uh had the privilege of working for right height for close to forty years. Any hobbies, passions outside of work, Walt? Well I have a lot of things I like to do. I'm a competitive sailor on uh Lake Michigan. Play a little golf in the summertime and uh yeah during the winter I do some woodworking in my basement. Very well rounded man here, I would say.

But today we want to put a spotlight on a specific industry. We're gonna be looking at pulp paper and packaging. So we're not here to talk about the branding someone might see and the actual packaging itself, but really the the trends in the industry that affect the loading dock and implant equipment that you'll see in types of these facilities.

So first off, Walt, can you tell me about any general trends that you're seeing that have impacted the the pulp and paper industry? There's a lot going on in pulp and paper right now. Certainly a big demand for a cardboard box. To support e commerce. uh which has uh really driven up uh demand for dock equipment, believe it or not, uh and older mills that need updating and what have you. We're also doing a lot of work with food packaging companies, bringing their facilities up to speed.

When it comes to the Food Safety Modernization Act and cleanliness standards, sanitation standards at and around the loading dock area and high-speed door open. That's interesting. Can you tell me a little bit more about the the Food Safety Modernization Act and kind of bringing those facilities up to speed? It's an interesting uh trend, Ken. Many of our clients in the packaging industry

To properly support their clients are needing to bring their facilities up to much higher standards when it comes to cleanliness. From the loading dock throughout the plant and back to the shipping dock. So we're doing everything from improving dock enclosures. Dock door openings to uh new and improved dock levelers. That'll create a much better seal around the door when the docks are And all Very very favorably received by that industry.

Can you talk about maybe non food industries too? I'm I'm thinking of I mean, obviously a place like an Amazon is gonna have sort of their their food arm, if you will. But all of those packages, is there uh an emphasis on cleanliness there too? Th there is certainly an e uh emphasis on cleanliness from the standpoint of uh, you know, clean workplace just a more efficient workplace. And uh we all know that it had a lot of these e commerce facilities

It's all about speed and efficiency and getting the product to us as consumers. So anything we can do to improve the look and feel of the facility for the employees or the associates. Uh just seems to lead to a more productive environment for

Now, bringing it back uh to the the pulp paper and packaging industry specifically, what kinds of material handling challenges are there? I mean these are heavy loads that they're dealing with. No, it's twofold. We we have to look at the inbound side first of all, which is typically big rolls of paper and and the one thing that we're we're seeing on the inbound side is that the rolls are getting bigger.

Taller and heavier, which necessitates heavier duty dock equipment, heavier duty vehicle restraints. Some cases larger overhead doors. and uh improved dock enclosure technology. So we've got solutions in all four of those categories that that work very well. On the outbound side, it's all about cube utilization. and uh getting the maximum number of empty boxes into the trailer and what have you. So once again, size and shape matter.

You have to have the proper size dock leveler, you have to have the proper size overhead door, you have to have the proper size dock enclosure. And when you get all three of those to work in tandem, you're gonna have a great efficient operation. with minimal product damage in the transfer at the

Now when I'm hearing things like paper and cardboard boxes, moisture's gotta be a concern too, humidity levels. Um does that factor into some of the decisions that you've gotta make at the loading dock as well? Absolutely. We uh We put special emphasis on the dock enclosures.

And especially the top member of the dock enclosure, the head member that comes in contact with the roof of the trailer. We want to make sure that we minimize any opportunity for rain or other water to infiltrate at that entry point.

Can you talk about some of those solutions and uh maybe additional trends that translate into how pulp paper and and packaging facility is designed and and what you're kinda thinking about as those uh those loading docks are being designed and really the the entire facility itself.

Related to the products, I think the big thing is, as I say, taking a real hard look at that dock enclosure to make sure that we're finishing it at the top correctly to not only create an air seal but also a water seal. Which means some type of damming effect on the roof of the trailer to divert any rainwater coming off the roof onto the side walls of the trailer, as opposed to the waterfall effect off the rear sill.

Related to overall facility design, uh as I say, we're taking a real hard look at what's coming into these facilities. Typically we see uh fewer inbound docks and more outbound docks. at the actual production facilities, uh, especially on the the packaging side. We're also making sure that we uh take a hard look at what kind of capacities we need on inbound versus outbound.

As I said earlier, in most cases we can get by with a slightly lighter capacity dock level or on the outbound side of the equation. But we have to be put special attention to the inbound side because as I say those loads are getting much heavier than they they had been in the past. And we want to make sure that we're designing not only for the day

Can you talk about any additional adjustments that a facility should be making to their operations to meet any new packaging methods and and challenges? I'm kinda thinking inside the dock with this question. we get into the production area. Now we're noticing, first of all, that clients to direct forklift traffic through the building are looking for some very unique barrier solutions. Painting the lines on the floor is no longer acceptable.

to separate forklifts from pedestrians or forklifts from production equipment. Clients are looking for heavy duty steel or polymer railing systems to create that separation. Once we get to the the physical production equipment, then they're looking for proper guarding around the equipment as well. At the infeed and the discharge points are looking for automatic machine guarding products that open and close on demand to accept and discharge product from the production.

And then of course around the perimeter of that equipment, once again steel or heavy duty polymer guardrailing to create proper protection. uh for the investment in the production equipment. I would love to hear in I guess your words here, Walt.

what uh and I know that every every facility has kind of its own unique thing, it's its own special operation, but I would love to hear uh a a good example or kind of like the ideal setup from loading dock through in the facility and and just talking a little bit about right hype products that can make for a pulp and paper industry facility safe.

efficient, productive, all those things. What kinds of right hide pieces of equipment make that happen? In most cases again, what we're striving for is a larger, heavier duty dock leveler on the inbound side. So I'm talking about something that's at least eight and a half feet wide, at least eight and in some cases ten feet long. With a heavy-duty vehicle restraint that not only restrains the trailer, but stabilizes the trailer from the dramatic up and down movement lift truck going in and out.

To complement that we go with a larger overhead door, nine or in some cases ten feet wide. by at least 10 or in some cases 12 feet high, with obviously a proper dock enclosure with water infiltration protection built into it. We control all that from a standard uh or a st a single control box that will include the dock level or dock lock, overhead door, and probably some additional safety communication devices as well.

Moving into the plant as I say will create some interesting lanes and aisleways with steel or polymer guardrail. To the production equipment, which is properly protected with machine guarding automatic barriers to accept and discharge product from the production equipment. Online itself. In the warehousing area we want to make sure that we have proper uh aisle width, aisle size.

In a lot of cases the warehouse is segregated from the production area. So we may be looking at some high speed doors to help with that segregation. Uh automatically ac activated a course the proper size and shape to meet the the loads that are going through. Outbound, the difference is that in many cases we're moving to vertical storing hydraulic dock level. And uh I happen to believe that i in the very near future those vertical storing hydraulic dock levelers

will also be extra wide, eight and a half feet wide by eight feet long. Uh you'll get the cleanliness benefit that we talked about earlier, as well as the efficiency benefit. of being able to load these trailers wall to wall, floor to ceiling. without any interference whatsoever. We'll put a nice vehicle restraint on those outbound docks, maybe not quite as beefy as what we had on the inbound docks. We'll do the same thing with the dock enclosure, get a real nice dock enclosure.

uh to minimize any water infiltration as well as uh outside air uh contamination to the building. And uh with the vertical dock leveler. The added benefit will be that we'll be able to control the opening and closing of the rear doors of the trailer from inside the building. Eliminating this phenomenon of boots on the ground out in the drive approach that so many of our clients are trying to move away.

So you've talked a lot about the the inbound and outbound uh loading docks too. Is that a a pretty common thing in the the paper pulp industry? In most facilities they they really have to uh segregate inbound from outbound because they're there's such a dramatic difference and the way the product flows through their building in many cases inbound might be on the east side, outbound on the west side for example.

That makes a lot of sense. As far as the kinds of customers that WrightHight has, I mean, are they coming from all over the country, all over the world? Are you seeing any specific areas that are becoming more involved in loading dock and implant solutions as it relates to this particular industry, the packaging industry? Or or obviously global companies or dealing with companies from all over the world. Right now we're doing a lot of work with pulp paper and packaging companies.

from around the country. We have a large packaging company here in Wisconsin that we've done a lot of work with over the last four or five years, including a new paper mill and a few other projects that are pretty exciting. But we're dealing with people on the the west coast, we're dealing with people down in the south east. There's quite a concentration down there. And of course here in Wisconsin in the Midwest we've got a plethora of companies that that deal in this industry that we deal with.

A lot of them coming in to the uh flying program to visit ya? We uh now that we're up and running in our new facilities we we have clients coming in daily to uh review their needs, discuss their needs and uh just to see a few more here. That's excellent. I'm glad to hear it, Walt. Is there anything that we missed that you wanted to cover about the pulp paper packaging industry?

Oh we're very uh we're very bullish on this industry right now. Uh I know the industry probably took a little bit of a hit here a couple of years ago, but uh the bounce back has been phenomenal and we're here to support it with the right products, the safest products. Yeah. Well thank you so much for your time here today, Walt. It's a pleasure as always to have you on the show.

And uh for you listeners out there, be sure to follow Right Height on all social media platforms and visit right com for additional information or to connect with a team member. Thanks again, Walt. If you enjoyed this episode of Right from the Source, be sure to subscribe on your preferred listening platform. Follow right height's social media channels. Want more supply chain logistics solutions for your facilities?