Common Dock Door Issues and Troubleshooting Tips
Just as there are no tall trees without deep roots, there is no such thing as a highly productive warehouse with poorly functioning dock doors. At any given distribution, warehouse or manufacturing facility, dock doors serve many goals – safety, security, profitability, sustainability, and more – that can only be fully met when these doors are in their very best shape.
Too often, warehouse doors do not receive the level of maintenance and care that they deserve, threatening a warehouse manager’s ability to fight off operating cost creep and unexpected downtime. As we’ll cover below, defending against such issues starts with understanding the many ways that dock doors can falter and then implementing maintenance practices that ward these issues off before they occur.
Dock doors are just one part of an overall dock management strategy, so while we’re focusing on dock doors and their maintenance in this article, we urge readers to keep the health of their dock levelers, shelters, signal lights, trailer restraints, and HVAC systems in mind as well.
Identifying Common Dock Door Issues
The best way to frame common dock door issues is in the context of what roles these doors play in the warehouses where they’re installed, such as:
Facility Security
Dock doors serve as a barrier against unauthorized access to a warehouse, securing the facility from potential theft and vandalism. Common issues that risk security lapses therefore include doors that don’t close fully, faulty locks, and worn hardware that can be easily defeated.
Safety
Loading docks present substantial safety risks, especially when it comes to lifts and personnel falling through unguarded openings. Dock doors are the primary line of defense against these risks. Door issues that impose safety risks include worn door tracks and rollers, frayed cables, faulty sensors, cracked springs, and any type of structural damage.
Weather Protection
Adverse weather conditions like rain, wind, and snow belong outside, and dock doors (along with dock shelters) ensure that this is the case. In our experience, weather tends to creep in through damaged door seals and gaskets as well as gaps created by misaligned door edges.
Environmental Quality
Warehouse personnel deserve clean, controlled working atmospheres free of hazards such as airborne particulates and slippery floors, which dock doors help to maintain. Same as with weather protection, door issues that lead to degrading environmental quality include poor door seals, failing weatherstripping, and edge gaps.
Thermal Insulation
Another aspect of providing employees and stored materials with favorable environmental conditions is keeping dock temperatures comfortable, which is largely a factor of how well dock doors are insulated. Door insulation is typically installed as thick fiberglass, mineral wool, or foam over the door’s surface, so any damage, gaps, fractures, or poor adhesion between these materials and the door will reduce the door’s thermal protection.
Energy Efficiency
Dock doors directly influence a warehouse’s operating cost, namely in the form of heating, cooling, and lighting energy efficiency. Simply put, nearly all the issues mentioned above can detract from a door’s energy efficiency, specifically concerning damage to the door’s insulation and sealing that make dock heating, cooling, and ventilation systems work harder than necessary. Further, aging mechanical parts such as the door’s rollers, drive gears, and drive motor can increase electrical demand costs.
Operational Productivity
Dock doors can either be a hindrance or an aid to a warehouse’s overall productivity level, mainly in their reliability, opening speed, and responsiveness. Any dock door issues that slow a door down (such as drive skipping, reduced spring tension, and uncalibrated sensors) can result in forklift operator delays and longer handling times, driving down productivity and driving up operating costs.
Integrated Automation
Dock doors are routinely automated these days, incorporating technologies that can automatically open, close, monitor, alarm, and optimize their functions. Automated elements present their own set of potential issues such as sensors falling out of calibration, network communication bottlenecks, power quality declines, and software/firmware version conflicts.
Maintenance & Troubleshooting Tips for Dock Doors
Now that readers have a clearer picture of the many roles and functional concerns involved with warehouse dock doors, now comes the time when managers must consider what maintenance solutions to implement so that these issues are caught before they manifest. We suggest that warehouse managers develop a well-rounded dock door care program including the following elements:
- Routine Inspections – it goes without saying that routine inspections should be performed on dock doors (and all other functional elements of a material handling warehouse) to catch sprouting issues before they blossom. To take this one step farther, we encourage warehouse managers to establish a documented operational baseline for their dock doors that routine inspections can measure against. Factors such as door travel rates, opening and closing times, response distance, sensor consistency, and drive chain and cable tensions are all quantifiable elements that can be measured and compared against, making inspections even more effective.
- Door Cleaning – we often see the topic of door cleaning end up on dock door maintenance lists without sufficient explanation on what to clean, how to perform this cleaning, and most importantly, why cleaning is necessary. Our tip here is to train operators to view cleaning through the lens of the door’s maintenance manual, looking specifically for mention of wear and safety elements that cleaning directly addresses. For instance, wiping debris from weather stripping extends its life and ensures a complete seal.
- Regular Servicing – we next suggest that readers compare their door manual’s service recommendations against the functional specifications typically listed at the back of the manual. Too often, door manuals list generic service recommendations such as tightening safety cables and checking panel alignment, but do not outright provide a quantifiable specification to service against. To find these values, readers must think to look in the specs section, contact the door’s OEM, or reach out to a qualified service company. For practically all doors, there are specific values that service tasks should achieve, most notably: alignment tolerances, maximum edge clearance values, lubricant amounts, and even maximum dimensions for hairline fractures.
- Security & Safety Testing – when was the last time that you physically tested the security and safety functions of your dock doors? Most warehouse maintenance teams will inspect safety and security components as well as test each component independently, but do not go so far as to physically test the overall door in simulated security or safety scenarios. Without actual testing, there’s no way to be sure that the door will perform as intended. For this reason, we suggest that warehouse managers implement physical testing of doors to ensure they will hold up, which may include lock-break tests, weighted door stress tests, controlled door impacts, forced-air wind tests, and automated safety system response tests.
We hope that this discussion on material handling techniques and technologies proves useful to your manufacturing, construction, and distribution interests. Atlantic Forklift Services is your premiere material handling equipment resource, serving customers in the North and South Carolinas with professional equipment sales, rentals, service, repair, parts, training, and solution consulting. As a Platinum award-winning dealership, Atlantic Forklift Services partners with world-class equipment manufacturers including Bobcat (formally Doosan). To learn more, please contact us by phone at (866) 243-0991, by email at info@atlanticforkliftservices.com, or on the web at https://www.atlanticforkliftservices.com/.