When it comes to your loading docks, safety should be job one.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) data show that a quarter of all industrial accidents happen at loading docks, making this vital, high-activity area a place for vigilance and attention to detail.
“We’re talking about industrial equipment. People don’t get paper cuts here; there can be serious injuries and potential fatalities,” explains Ryan Schaffner, director of sales for loading dock equipment manufacturer McGuire, a division of Systems LLC. Schaffner says there are 7,700 forklift accidents per year at loading docks across the United States: “That’s 21 [incidents] per day. It’s important to protect yourself.”
Protecting employees, vendors, transportation providers, and visitors—anyone who could come into contact with your loading docks—gets a little bit easier when you can identify risks and stay up to date on the latest advances in loading dock systems and equipment. Here are three ways to help ensure your loading docks are as safe as possible.
COMMUNICATE
The biggest accident risk at the loading dock? Early departure of a truck or trailer while a forklift is still inside. The best way to avoid that risk? Good communication and good processes.
“Loading docks are loud, complex environments,” Schaffner explains, noting that in many situations, there’s no clean line of sight or established process for dock workers to communicate with truck drivers coming in and out of the yard every day.
“It’s easy for miscommunication to happen,” he adds. “Ultimately, though, customers [need to] own what happens on their property and in their building. It may be a FedEx driver, but the customer site has to own the safety of the loading and unloading [operations].”
One way to solve the problem is to install a light-communication system that indicates when it’s safe for a truck to enter or leave the dock, and when the driver should stay put. Like traffic signals, dock alerts use red and green lights inside and outside the building—working in opposition—to let both the driver and the forklift operator know the status of the loading or unloading operation. A green light inside indicates it’s safe for the forklift operator to load or unload, and a green light outside lets the driver know it’s safe to pull in or away, for instance. Red lights indicate the opposite.
Truck restraints add another layer of protection and can work in conjunction with light systems. Usually mounted underneath the dock leveler—which is a platform that ensures the safe and smooth movement of goods from the truck to the building—truck restraints hook onto a trailer’s bumper or to a bar underneath the truck, holding it to the building so that the truck can’t pull away without substantial force. Restraints also help eliminate trailer “creep”—which happens when the trailer starts to inch away due to the repetitive motions of the forklifts entering and exiting the trailers. The restraints prevent this and hold the trailer fast to the dock. When the dock leveler is stored and there’s no forklift or worker inside the trailer, a green light tells the driver it’s OK to go.
“Try to increase communication to avoid the incident from occurring,” Schaffner advises, referring to the light system. “The insurance policy is the truck restraint—the physical means of holding you to the building.”
AUTOMATE
Moving from manual to automated loading dock systems is also a good way to improve safety. Dock levelers offer another useful example: Mechanical systems require workers to manually raise and lower the leveler, putting them in close contact with equipment—which can raise the risk of slip-and-fall accidents, among other dangers. Alternatively, air-powered and hydraulic dock levelers utilize pushbutton controls that allow workers to remain at a safe distance from the truck and leveler, reducing the risk of accidents.
Schaffner says more than half of the warehousing industry uses mechanical systems, so there’s plenty of room to convert to automated protocols where it makes sense. Experts at loading dock equipment maker Rite-Hite agree; in a report on industry trends from early this year, the company listed the automation of labor-intensive tasks as one of the top loading dock trends of 2024.
“… manually lifting a loading dock leveler or bending over to throw open a dock door can be taxing on anyone’s back and body. These repetitive motions can lead to chronic pain that stays with workers long after they’ve punched out for the day. In fact, back injuries account for one in five workplace injuries. And 80% of those injuries are caused by manual material handling that requires twisting, carrying, or extending out to reach something,” Rite-Hite said in its report. “This is more often seen inside the facility, but in the last 10 to 15 years has been addressed at the loading dock with the application of pushbutton controls for dock [leveler] operation.”
Such systems help keep workers at the control box, where they are both ergonomically protected and out of harm’s way.
SEQUENCE
Automated systems can also help ensure that loading dock operations are handled in the proper sequence each and every day—another key to safety.
“We encourage customers to look at that—how do we protect everyone to make sure it’s the safest operation [and also that] we’re using things in the proper order every single time,” Schaffner says. “We talk a lot about sequence of operation. And the more we encourage [customers] to buy more powered equipment than manual [equipment], the better.”
Leaders at Rite-Hite concur. Advanced loading dock controls can help “bake” safety into the equation by programming equipment to only work in an “interlocked safe sequence of operations,” according to the 2024 trends report. Rite-Hite uses its Dok-Lok system as an example: The sequence of operations begins when the truck backs in and the Dok-Lok becomes engaged with a rear-impact guard, or a wheel-based restraint is engaged with the rear wheels.
“Once the vehicle is secured, the dock barrier can be stored out of the way [and] the overhead door can be opened and the leveler positioned into the trailer bed,” according to the report. “After loading/unloading, the restraint is not allowed to disengage the trailer until the leveler is taken out of the trailer and stored safely, [the] dock door [is] closed, and [the] safety barrier [is] engaged across [the] dock opening.”
McGuire/Systems LLC offers similar solutions.
“Your restraint has to be engaged before you open the door, [so there is] always a protective layer there,” Schaffner says. “Likewise, you can’t engage the dock leveler until the door is in a fully open position.”
The ultimate goal? A safe and secure loading dock.
