Loading Docks, Security and Truck Drivers
Your facility can be secure, safe and welcoming to drivers and other visitors
Truck drivers often need to enter warehouses when they deliver or pick up shipments. When they do, many warehouses have installed secure driver cages that let the driver into the facility, but not into the building at large. This can seem “driver-unfriendly” because they contain the driver. However, there are good reasons to install them while ensuring drivers have a good experience at your facility.
Dock security cages are a simple way to control warehouse access. The reality is that many distribution centers must control access points like personnel doors, so the question is: how
How to make your receiving area carrier-friendly
One of the ways to ensure smooth operations is to create a welcoming and friendly environment for drivers.
In this LinkedIn post about dock security measures, one user says: “This (access cages) tells me that they are not a carrier-friendly shipper. This is a trust factor because they are worried about theft and safety, but will they load their trailers? I understand the reasoning regarding safety, but there is another way of handling this instead of caging them.”
In a driver-friendly operation, they shouldn’t be used to contain the driver for any extended timeframe. Security cages are preferable to a locked door, which leaves the driver outside on the dock entirely before they’re admitted.
What are some ways to make your operation friendlier to drivers and carriers?
- Build a lounge for drivers. Many large distribution centers have dedicated spaces with wifi, restrooms, coffee and vending machines where drives can wait safely and comfortably.
- If you install access cages, add amenities like benches, service windows, trash cans and water coolers for driver use.
- Also for access cages, if the driver must wait to be admitted, be sure to have designated employees who monitor and admit drivers. Don’t force drivers to wait in the access partition.
- Cages should be outfitted with pushbars, card readers or other measures that make admitting drivers and other visitors quickly.
- If the driver doesn’t need to spend much time in the access cage, add service windows and other features that allow quick interactions with your warehouse staff.
Ultimately, many warehouses must control access at these doors for safety and security reasons covered below.
Why are dock door access cages necessary?
When these cages are installed, it inconveniences drivers and other facility visitors by the nature of the cage–they’re held at the door and must wait to be admitted. This is for two critical reasons: safety and security.
Safety considerations
Visitors of all kinds, whether truck drivers, maintenance crews, customers or others, are not trained in your safety protocols and processes. They are unfamiliar with the machinery, forklift traffic patterns, blind zones or other issues. Allowing visitors unfettered access is never a good idea, and one way to ensure they don’t get it is to control your egress points.
Read more: How to Make Warehouse & Plant Visitors Safer: A Guide
Visitors might inadvertently distract your workers, which may cause accidents or mishaps. Also, visitors who aren’t familiar with your evacuation in the event of an emergency. People other than drivers and maintenance workers may try to enter your facility, and some of them shouldn’t be allowed in at all. Open personnel doors are one way this can happen. Access cages are less expensive and easier to access than permanent construction.
Above: access control cage with bench installed inside for visitor comfort
Security considerations
Unauthorized access can lead to theft, vandalism, or sabotage, compromising the security of your people, machinery and inventory.
- Use personnel access cages to deter pilferage and theft. Limiting access is fundamental to security. Particularly if you are working with high-value inventory, you can’t allow visitors to walk freely into your storage or processing areas.
- Contamination issues: Depending on what you store (food, pharmaceuticals or other sensitive inventory), external contaminants may be an issue.
- Remember that it isn’t only drivers who can enter a building. Other visitors, including unauthorized ones, can enter through your personnel doors.
- Insurance compliance and considerations. Insurance companies may not specifically require access control, but they pay attention to your security systems when conduct audits or set rates. In some cases, lack of access could invalidate your coverage.
- Regulatory and industry compliance: For some types of warehouses, enhanced security is mandatory. Companies with FTZ (free trade zone) designations may require enhanced security and access control measures. Bonded warehouses may also need this type of coverage.
Better security and visitor comfort
You can achieve both the needed access control and create a visitor-friendly operation. In the layout above, drivers and visitors have access to interior doors, lounges or restrooms or offices without free access to the warehouse or its protected inventory or safety concerns.
Implementing security measures does not reflect a lack of trust for drivers, maintenance workers or other visitors. It protects them when done correctly. Visitor-friendly measures like quick admittance, driver lounges and easily-accessible restrooms helps those guests work with your people and ensure a smoother operation.
Read more
- White Paper: Loss Prevention & Warehouse Security
- Innovative Ways to Secure Your Facility with Wire Partitions
- Shoptalk: DEA-Compliant Cages for Controlled Substances
Tags: warehousing, dock security
Scott Stone is Cisco-Eagle's Vice President of Marketing with 35 years of experience in material handling, warehousing and industrial operations. His work is published in multiple industry journals an websites on a variety of warehousing topics. He writes about automation, warehousing, safety, manufacturing and other areas of concern for industrial operations and those who operate them.