If you work in a manufacturing, distribution or general warehousing, then you will have likely come across a loading bay lift before. If you don’t own one at your own place of business, however, then you may want to consider doing so. Why? Because the economical benefits they can offer you are undeniable.
In this article, we’ll be taking a closer look at the benefits of investing in quality loading bay lifts, drawing on how these benefits can subsequently benefit your business from a financial standpoint for years to come.
What is a Loading Bay Lift?
Before we go on to discuss the benefits of these lifts, let us first discuss what they actually are. Also known as a dock lift, a loading bay lift is a large type of platform lift that’s specially designed to facilitate the loading and unloading of goods between significant height differences.
Typically, they are installed in a specific, fixed location within a loading dock area and are built to frequently handle heavy loads.
Here at Edmolift, we offer bespoke solutions, being able to create platform sizes, configurations and barrier styles to suit your personal requirements, making loading bay lifts even more of a versatile solution for those that would benefit from their use.
Uses of a Dock Lift
Compared to other lifting solutions, dock lifts are designed to handle greater height differences when lifting and lowering loads. On top of that, they’re also built to handle heavier loads, for example items such as pallets or large shipments.
As such, their uses are predominantly industrial. Common uses of a dock lift may include:
- Loading and unloading trucks or containers for deliveries
- Handling large/heavy goods (e.g. moving pallets or roll-cages)
- Transferring goods between different heights
As for where they’re used, they’re often found at:
- Distribution centres
- Manufacturing plants
- Warehouses
- Retail facilities (e.g. supermarkets)
The Benefits of Loading Bay Lifts
Increased Efficiency
One of the primary benefits of utilising loading bay lifts for business is the increased efficiency they offer your business operations. They do this in many ways.
Firstly, their versatility to be raised or lowered to different heights depending on where goods need to be unloaded from or loaded to makes them highly adaptable. For example, they can load/unload goods to and from lorries of various heights, or transport goods from floor level to a higher level and vice versa.
This means items can be transported directly from one place to another, all in the same place, before being taken to their final destination. This makes for a speedy process that cuts out the need for additional vehicles and lifting solutions to act as a middle ground between points ‘A’ and ‘B’.
Their ability to handle heavy loads also increases efficiency, since loads can all be moved in one go, rather than in multiple lots – thus also speeding up the process.
Economic Benefit
You can see the benefits loading bay lifts have on efficiency, but how does this efficiency benefit you on an economical level?
Ultimately, increased efficiency = reduced costs + more revenue.
One of the reasons this is the case is due to your business being able to increase output within the same timeframe. For example, let’s say you own a manufacturing business and deliver 1,000 boxes of products a day without the use of a loading bay lift. Now let’s say you’re able to load double the amount of boxes into a delivery lorry at any one time with the use of a loading bay lift – that’s already double your output! Increased output then means increased opportunity for revenue.
At the same time, you’ll likely reduce your costs. For example, you may find that you’re having to pay less detention fees (the fees paid to a carrier for making their drivers wait past an agreed time-slot) due to the increase in efficiency during loading and unloading.
By reducing your costs and increasing your opportunity for revenue, as is achieved through the increased efficiency of business operations, then you may find that your business is forecast to see increases in profit, also.
Reduced Labour
Because of the impressive capabilities boasted by loading bay lifts, they can reduce the need for manual labour. Whereby more workers may have been required originally to drive multiple forklifts when transporting loads or manually handling them with the help of pallet trucks, being able to load and unload items directly to and from a loading bay lift can significantly reduce the requirement for this many workers.
These workers can then prioritise other tasks elsewhere in the business to further improve the efficiency of your operations, or you may find that you can get by with less workers than you currently have.
Economic Benefit
Again, there are a couple of ways reduced labour requirements can benefit your business financially. Firstly, if your workers are utilised elsewhere in your business, this can improve the overall efficiency of your operations, which (as we’ve already stated) can make your business more profitable.
Alternatively, if you find that you actually have more workers than you need, then by reducing your workforce you can cut some of your costs significantly. Of course, this would be a situation that would need to be handled both professionally and empathetically, but one that could have significant financial benefit for your business.
Safe Working Practices
A reliable dock lift allows your employees to perform their loading duties with minimal risk. They significantly reduce the need for manual handling, which can cause physical injuries and strain when having to handle heavy loads. Similarly, the technology used to operate these lifts allows your team to streamline loading operations, reducing the risk of injuries and accidents from occurring.
Economic Benefit
Whilst the safety of your employees is predominantly an ethical concern for you, it is also partly a financial one.
By reducing the risk of accidents and injury, your employees are less likely to experience downtime from work as a result, which is another way of maintaining and even increasing your business’ operational efficiency.
Ease of Operation
Loading bay lifts are incredibly simple to use, requiring minimal training to learn how to operate. As for actually operating them, much of the technology is also automated, meaning minimal input is required by an actual person and there is unlikely to be a need to regularly consult a manual.
This also makes training other employees on how to operate a loading bay lift easier.
Economic Benefit
Because the training for loading bay lift operation is so simple and easy to follow, you won’t have to pay extensive training costs each time a new worker is trained on how to operate them. Furthermore, training employees on how to operate a loading bay lift won’t cause significant downtime that takes them away from their other working tasks because it will be so quick, thus ensuring operational efficiency isn’t reduced.
Streamlined Logistics
All of the above benefits ultimately lead to more streamlined loading and unloading operations, making your logistics much easier to manage and oversee. This makes it easier for you to keep an eye on efficiency and identify any areas where improvements can be made.
Economic Benefit
By having clear and transparent insight into your loading and unloading logistics, you can make smart and economical decisions for improvements, allowing efficiency to further be improved and costs to be reduced accordingly.
Loading Bay Platform Lift Solutions
If you’re looking for loading bay lifts that will interface seamlessly with your building, vehicles and processes, then we’ve got the expertise and solutions for you here at Edmolift. We understand the role loading bays play as the focal point of the logistics process, along with all of the economical benefits that a streamlined loading bay operation can bring, which is why we will design and install loading bay lifts to suit your exact requirements.
We offer our site survey visits free of charge, during which our highly experienced engineering team will ascertain which product will suit your requirements and provide you with a cost effective solution.
If you’d like to discuss your requirements for a loading bay lift installation at your business, then get in touch with us today. From platform lifts to industrial goods lifts, you can rest assured that we’ve got your commercial lifting needs covered.
