Protecting the World’s Food Supply, One Loading Dock at a Time

When it comes to food, beverages, and other perishable goods, shippers think about safety first, with maintaining desired temperatures coming in at a close second. The loading dock is one place where temperatures are particularly vital, and namely because of the chance for exposure to outside weather conditions (i.e., heat, humidity, and freezing cold) and other extremes that aren’t present within the four walls of the DC or warehouse.

Cleanliness plays an equally as important role in the day-to-day operations of a food or beverage shipper, which has to comply with strict guidelines in order to ensure that its products are safe for human or animal consumption. One of seven foundational rules for creating a modern, risk-based framework for good safety, for example, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) rule on Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food is focused on protecting foods from farm to table by keeping them safe from contamination during transportation.

In this Q&A, Daryl Day, IoT product manager for Serco 4SIGHT™ Connect - Dock, explores the biggest dock management challenges facing today’s food, beverage, and cold storage markets and shows how 4SIGHT Connect - Dock alleviates these pain points and helps companies work smarter in today’s fast-paced distribution environment.

Q: What makes the loading dock a pain point for food and beverage shippers?

A: It’s all about maintaining the environment, including both temperature and cleanliness. These are critical factors that companies can’t afford to ignore, and technology is helping them address these issues. Our newest products, for instance, give companies innovative new ways to monitor dock activities without the need for additional labor. Using Serco 4SIGHT Connect - Dock, supervisors can remotely monitor the status of a dock, and know immediately if the door is open (without a truck in the bay) or if the truck is in place (and the door is closed). Using the platform, they can see exactly what is and isn’t functioning without having to pick up the phone or visit the dock in person.

Q: How is this different from the processes typically used to manage these activities?

A: A lot of companies are still managing their docks by hand using notebooks, pens, paper, and spreadsheets. We’re giving them a more streamlined, tech-enabled way to see exactly what’s happening on the dock. We’ll soon expand those capabilities to include environmental variables, to the point where someone can see exactly what the temperature is at the loading dock (both inside and outside). They can use that data to determine the delta, and to see whether the product’s temperature meets food safety guidelines.

Q: How else can they leverage that data to work smarter in the cold chain environment?

A: They’ll have a way to store all of the data and hold it electronically in databases. From there, managers and supervisors can access the information and manipulate it in a way that helps them meet their operational goals. This will not only make shippers more effective, but it will ultimately help them create safer, more accountable, and more traceable operations.

Q: How does 4SIGHT Connect – Dock help companies hit their KPIs at the dock?

A: The amount of time that a truck spends at the dock is a key performance indicator (KPI) that usually disappears as soon as the truck rolls away from the dock. With the 4SIGHT Connect - Dock, that data is captured, along with how long it took someone to load and unload a truck and how long the truck was at the dock (whether it was restrained or not). This KPI gives companies a very measurable benchmark that they can work to improve over time, and that translates into real cost and time savings for shippers.

Q: How can different levels of the organization use the dock monitoring platform?

A: Our dock platform is designed for different levels of the operational chain. For executives, we’ve put in place a reporting package that provides metrics that leaders can use to see exactly what’s going on at their docks (e.g., how long is my truck restrained and how long is my truck present at the dock?). At one of our own facilities, for instance, trucks were sitting idle for hours, ready to load. Then, they get restrained, loaded, and released. Then, the truck sits for another few hours after it’s been released, waiting for the trucking company to show up and pick it up.

These are important metrics for executive management, which can use the data to help defer and manager detention charges at the dock. With 4SIGHT Connect - Dock, supervisors and managers can readily determine whether everyone is operating the equipment the way they’re supposed to, and take action as needed. If, for example, they see that a piece of equipment is being frequently overridden, then it may need servicing or repair—something that wouldn’t normally be detected until a full breakdown occurred.

Q: How can executives use dock data for future-focused decision-making?

A: Dock utilization is an important point that all executives have their eye on right now. They want to know how often docks are being used and how often vehicles are actually being loaded/unloaded at those docks. That way, when the time comes to build a new facility, they know that they can incorporate 5% fewer (or, 5% more) docks than they currently have. From a high-level executive perspective, the platform also lets them know if they’re overloading their current facilities and provides new insights that can be used to upgrade existing or build new warehouses and DCs.