materialhandlingupdate
BY SUSAN K. LACEFIELD, ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR
is your dock
leaking cash?
If your loading dock has become an
escape route for heated and cooled
air, you’re not necessarily doomed
to a lifetime of rising utility bills.
There are ways to plug the leaks.
IF YOURS IS A TYPICAL SHIPPING OPERATION,
shipments probably aren’t the only thing flowing
out your dock doors each day. Chances are, money
is too, in the form of air you’ve paid to heat or cool.
The causes of the problem aren’t hard to understand. With doors opening and closing all day long,
loading docks represent a prime escape route for
heated and cooled air. And those doors aren’t the
only area of vulnerability. Think of all the gaps
between the dock door and the door of the truck
that’s parked there for loading or unloading. Those
cracks and gaps may seem insignificant, but they’re
actually a major source of energy loss. If you added
up all those gaps for 10 dock doors, you’d have the
equivalent of a 6- by 6-foot hole in your distribution
center’s wall, says Steve Sprunger, vice president of
sales and marketing for dock equipment maker
In the past, it was easy enough to dismiss the
problem as an unavoidable part of dock operations.
But times are changing. Today, rising utility costs
and societal and corporate pressure to be green are
driving companies to take a look at how they can
conserve energy at the loading dock.
So what can you do to tighten up your operations?
Here are some tips.
Mind the gaps
When it comes to saving energy at the dock, most
experts will tell you that shelters and seals are the
first line of defense. Dock doors typically stand open
for hours on end while trucks are loaded and
unloaded, creating enormous potential for energy
loss if the opening isn’t sealed. Shelters, which cover
