Within industrial buildings such as warehouses or factories, you may or may not see dock levellers around depending on how the building was designed and built.
While not all industrial spaces come with dock levellers, these equipment may come in handy especially during the loading and unloading process. You may sometimes see dock levellers at the loading and unloading bays of an industrial factory or warehouse building.
Bridge Gap Between Goods Vehicle and Unloading / Loading Area
There are various types of dock levellers available in the market. In general, the purpose of the dock levellers would be to level up or bridge the gap between the goods vehicle or container so that the process of loading and unloading can be made easier by eliminating the gap between.
Direct Vehicle Access for Forklift / Stacker
When the gap between the vehicle and loading or unloading area is bridged, forklifts or stackers may be able to enter the goods vehicle such as a container or lorry directly to load or unload the goods. By having dock levellers, it may also enable you to load or unload goods easily using a pallet jack since the gap is bridged.
Quicker and Easier Loading & Unloading
This would also help to speed up the loading and unloading process and increase productivity as time required to do loading and unloading can be kept lower. It is also easier to do loading and unloading with dock levellers as compared to the traditional way of having to use both pallet jacks and forklifts or stackers at the same time which may take a longer time as the forklifts or stackers do not have direct access to the goods vehicle.
Sometimes, there may not be dock levellers at loading and unloading bays but you may see alternative equipment such as scissors lifts which serve a similar purpose which is to bridge the gap for quicker and easier loading & unloading. Dock levellers are usually also more commonly found at warehouses with dedicated loading bays.