Ace Hardware installs 45,000- pound capacity dock levelers

With more than 5,000 retailer-owned small store locations, Ace Hardware offers a longstanding tradition of high-quality, personalized customer service. The world’s largest hardware cooperative has recently been engaged in an aggressive retail growth strategy, which includes restructuring its East Coast retail support network.

To date, Ace Hardware operates 21 distribution and freight consolidation centers across the United States. The careful positioning of these operations—to quickly service the company’s stores—is critical to Ace Hardware’s growth plans and continued success.

One such facility is Ace Hardware’s Retail Support Center (RSC) in Fredericksburg, Pa., which replaced an older RSC in Virginia, as well as a small crossdock facility in the Baltimore area.

“The Fredericksburg RSC placed us in a much better geographically strategic location to better service retail stores throughout Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.,” says Dirk DeYoung, facilities engineering manager for Ace Hardware.

Originally an 800,000-square-foot spec building with 94 dock pits, the RSC’s developer was aggressively marketing the property when Ace Hardware discovered it. The company liked the location so much that it decided to acquire the facility, while also immediately making plans to expand its footprint to 1.1 million square feet—an expansion that included an additional 35 new dock bays, bringing the total to 129.

Unfortunately, the spec building contained some flaws. The quality and sizes of its dock leveler pits were inconsistent. In addition, pit squareness and varying depths were concerns.

“It quickly became obvious that modifying 94 dock pits would be cost-prohibitive,” DeYoung says.

However, that problem could ultimately be solved by selecting the right dock leveler. “Being able to match the right dock leveler to the right pit—location by location—was extremely important,” DeYoung says.

As a result, the chosen leveler was adapted to meet the required height and length adjustments for each pit. “Overall, the dock pit size issues ended up requiring about three to four different leveler size variations,” he adds, “But, just looking at the final installations, you wouldn’t be able to discern any visible differences.”

DeYoung says Ace Hardware opted to start installing 45,000-pound capacity levelers at its DCs about 15 years ago.

“We’ve been really pleased with the leveler’s performance over time, especially since we’ve experienced no dishing in the decks,” he adds.

He added that the Fredericksburg, Pa., RSC hired all new employees, as most had no previous warehouse experience. So far, dock personnel like that the leveler is not intimidating and it’s very easy to use, due to its push-button operation.

Each Fredericksburg RSC pit also includes a special perimeter seal along the sides and rear of a dock leveler. And, even though the facility relies on manual chocking, due to the predominance of lift gate trailers, each dock position features an integrated red/green automatic light system (ALS) that’s interlocked and sequenced to ensure safe dock leveler and door operation.

Kelley
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