Offloading

On arrival, the vehicle details need to be checked against the booking reference and the vehicle allocated a loading bay or location in the yard. Any vehicle seals need to be checked against the delivery paperwork. Prior to offloading temperature-controlled vehicles, the temperature history of the vehicle whilst in transit needs to be checked, together with the current temperature of the goods. Once the vehicle has backed onto the appropriate bay or has been positioned in the yard for offloading from the sides, the in-handling team should have appropriate labour and equipment to handle the offloading process efficiently. When vehicles are unloaded in the yard this usually necessitates the use of two lift trucks, one to unload the trailer and another to put the product away within the warehouse.

The introduction of articulated forklift trucks reduces the requirement for two different types of truck for this operation. The most common method of unloading palletized vehicles onto a loading bay is with a powered pallet truck, hand pallet truck or pallet jack. Some companies utilize counter-balance forklift trucks; however, the weight of the truck, driver and load on potentially weak or damaged floors can be lead to accidents. Unloading times will vary depending on the equipment used and whether the load needs to be staged prior to put-away. In order to speed up this process, equipment companies have introduced an automatic unloading system, which means that a 26-pallet trailer can be unloaded within five minutes of arriving at the dock. Unloading methods include the use of rollers, tracks and slip chains whilst others use loading plates or giant slip sheets. Combine these with conveyors or automated guided vehicles (AGV) and the requirement for labour within the receiving operation reduces significantly.

                                                                             Figure: Automated unloading

Unloading loose-loaded containers has always been a time-consuming operation. This normally necessitates having at least two people unloading within the container and placing the items onto a pallet. A third person is usually waiting for the pallet to be stacked before taking it to the checking area before put away. This is a very unproductive task as the staff within the container wait for full pallets to be replaced with empty ones while the forklift driver is waiting for the pallet to be built. There is no guarantee that the same product is together within the container, therefore more sortation needs to take place on the unloading dock. This is very inefficient and can be hazardous to the staff, which are continually bending and stretching within the container and are in close proximity to the MHE. Lighting is usually poor and conditions are not conducive to fast, accurate work. Added problems arise if the warehouse is not equipped with loading bays and is dependent on a container ramp, which can slow the process even further.

Figure 3.5 below shows a boom conveyor unloading cartons from a container. These can be static or can be moved between loading doors as required. Placing cartons onto a conveyor means that sortation can take place outside.

                              Figure: Boom conveyor unloading cartons (courtesy of Best Conveyors)