Martha Spizziri has been a writer and editor for more than 30 years. She spent 11 years at Logistics Management and was web editor at Modern Materials Handling magazine for five years, starting with the website's launch in 1996. She has long experience in developing and managing Web-based products.
"Ba-bump, ba-bunk." That was the sound Greg Nicholas, chief operating officer of Citrus Systems Inc., heard all day from his office. It was the sound of lift trucks driving on and off the trailers, which he could hear even though his office was located 150 feet away from the company's loading docks.
The noise was annoying, but worse, it was a sign of a serious problem. The dock levelers were terrible for the lift-truck drivers' backs. The levelers were the old pull-chain style units, with a welded plate in front and a fold-down lip, which created a hump that lift trucks had to drive over. And because Citrus Systems, which makes private-label fruit drinks and other items for the dairy, grocery, and food-service trades, was a busy, growing operation, the drivers were driving over that lip many times each day, causing sore backs for the operators and extra wear on the lift trucks.
There were other issues, too. All the bumping and Joséling caused the shrink-wrap on the top layers of the loads to stretch, especially on the taller loads. That lessened the loads' stability and made them more vulnerable to damage in transit. Furthermore, truck restraints couldn't be mounted on two of the docks, so two out of the four docks had nothing but wheel chocks to restrain trailers.
And there were safety concerns. "We hadn't had any reportable injuries as a result of dock levelers, but we had a couple near misses where someone didn't put a chock in, a truck is slowly moving forward, a manager walks by and sees there's three-quarters of an inch in the lip on the truck and stops the forklift driver and points it out to him," said Nicholas. "We had some trailers shift in the snow. Some little things like this."
BA-BYE, BA-BUMP!
In 2013, Citrus Systems moved out of the old warehouse space, which consisted of 68,000 square feet spread over three buildings in Minneapolis. The new location in nearby Hopkins, Minn., consists of a single 135,000-square-foot facility. Yet while the move provided an upgrade in space, nothing much was different where the dock equipment was concerned. Like the previous facility, the new one was outfitted with short, pull-chain type dock levelers.
Determined not to carry over the problems from the old facility into the new one, Citrus Systems decided it was time to invest in new dock equipment—with an eye toward enhancing safety. After a trip to Wisconsin to check out the offerings of different dock-equipment makers, the company purchased equipment from Rite-Hite to fit out the nine dock doors in its new facility.
The equipment included Rite-Hite Hydraulic 4000 levelers with Dok-Commander controls, Corner-Vu safety lights, and Dok-Lok vehicle restraints. Rite-Hite dock seals were installed on some of the doors, while others got Rite-Hite Eliminator-Gapmaster dock shelters.
The new equipment—especially the restraints and levelers—has greatly improved safety, according to Nicholas. For instance, acrylic tube lights bracket the top corners on the inside of each dock opening; these lights turn green when the trailer is locked to indicate that it's safe for forklift operators to enter.
"It's very plain when the dock hook is not engaged and when the truck is not safe (for forklift entry)," said Nicholas.
A safety feature of Citrus Systems' loading dock system: the dock leveler can't lower into place until the trailer hook is engaged. That means lift truck drivers can't drive into the trailer unless the truck is secured to the dock.
As another safeguard, the system is set up to prevent the leveler from being activated until the dock hook is fully engaged. "That's a big advantage for us safety-wise," Nicholas explained. With the old system, employees might be tempted to skip putting wheel chocks out. "It's a Friday, they want to go home, it's the last truck of the day. They're like, 'Oh, I'm only putting four pallets on it. I heard him [the truck driver] put his air brake on,'" he said. The new system "just short-circuits that whole thing completely."
The new dock levelers are lacking one thing, though: "You don't run into the big hump that we used to. It's a smoother transition," said Nicholas. That's "easier on the product loads, easier on the shrink-wrap, and easier on the driver."
The smoother entry has also raised productivity. In the old facility, lift-truck drivers were forced to slow to a crawl to go over the hump. Now, they don't have to do that. "Our turn time on loading a full trailer is probably down to 20 minutes," Nicholas reported. That's partly because of the layout of the new warehouse, but, according to Nicholas, the new levelers were also a significant factor in that productivity gain.
There were money-saving benefits as well.
"I don't know how many pairs of wheel chocks we lost (at the old facility)," Nicholas said. Either (truck operators) would drive over them—they'd forget to take them out and just drive away—or they'd just take them. We would try to chain them up to the wall, (but) we were buying wheel chocks every three months, it seemed like." With the restraints, he says, "Wheel chocks are a thing of the past."
On top of that, maintenance costs have dropped. Citrus Systems signed a maintenance contract, so the equipment gets regular lubrication and care, but nothing has had to be repaired or replaced in the nearly three years it's been in use. That's a big contrast from the older-style levelers; the bumpy transition from dock to truck meant someone was coming in about every six months to re-weld pit frames and end plates that had been loosened, according to Nicholas. "It was a constant issue at the old place."
And there's a side benefit as well. That annoying "ba-bump, ba-bunk" sound? It, too, is a thing of the past.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.