TrafficInfraTech Magazine Linking People Places & Progress
At large, busy logistics sites, just a few dock managers control the flow of hundreds of vehicles waiting to load and unload – often causing delays and impacting performance. With Hikvision’s Smart Dock feature, it becomes fast and simple to direct vehicles to available docks, speeding up loading and unloading, and maximizing throughput and efficiency.
To meet rising consumer demands for parcel delivery – particularly for goods bought online – logistics companies need to manage their loading docks as effectively as possible. However, dock managers often lack the real-time information they need to make fast, accurate decisions.
They may not be able to see, for example, which docks are available, which are in use, and which will soon be free. Without these vital insights, vehicles often wait unnecessarily when they could be loading or unloading, causing delays and negatively impacting productivity and the throughput of goods through the facility.
As an additional challenge, managers are often unable to see which truck parking areas are available. This means drivers often simply park where they can, blocking important areas of the site, or slowing down other vehicles trying to reach their allocated docks.
Dock management with intelligent video
To address the challenges of ineffective and manual dock management, Hikvision has built Smart Dock Management features into its Logistics solution portfolio. Using an intelligent dock camera at every loading and unloading bay, the solution provides real-time information that enables dock managers to make accurate, timely decisions across many more docks than would otherwise be possible.
The Smart Dock Management feature incorporates several key capabilities that help to automate and optimize dock management operations.
Key capabilities of the solution include:
Dock occupation detection
The cameras can detect, in real time, if trucks are loading or unloading at docks, or whether they are unoccupied. The solution also recognizes the truck’s number plates to identify the vehicle that is occupying the dock. This information is relayed to an interactive map, giving managers instant visibility of load and unload operations and docks that are available, 24 hours-a-day. Based on these real-time insights, drivers can be dispatched to available docks quickly and efficiently via a mobile app.
Parking optimization
Information from dock cameras and other site cameras also provide a real-time view of available parking spaces across the site. This allows managers to dispatch trucks to available parking spaces where they can wait without blocking key corridors and routes on the site.
Monitoring for truck loading and unloading
Using cameras positioned inside and outside loading bays, the Hikvision solution creates a record for later reference. This is essential for determining responsibility and liability in the event of goods going missing, or if an accident occurs such as fragile goods falling from a truck or pallet.
Security checks
To maximize security, information for barcode scanners is cross-referenced with video records. This enhances goods tracking and provides an audit trail to ensure goods never ‘leak’ from the supply chain.
Automation of inbound and outbound processes
The solution eliminates the need to calculate transport costs for parcels manually based on their weight and size. Instead, it uses product information from barcode scanners to automate the process, reducing operating costs and maximizing throughput.
Efficient dock management with a digital dashboard interface
The solution provides a digital dashboard which displays all docks, showing if they are available or occupied. The dashboard also displays historical performance data, allowing staff to optimize operational efficiency, optimize scheduling and staffing decisions, and speed up the time between vehicles arriving and leaving. Together, these benefits serve to improve the overall operating efficiency of the logistics park.
Key benefits of Smart Dock Management
With Hikvision’s Smart Dock solution, logistics operations can improve their throughput and performance, while also providing far better experiences for dock managers and truck drivers.
Top benefits include:
Increased operational performance and efficiency
With features that help managers dispatch drivers to available docks more quickly, the solution helps to maximize dock utilization. This allows logistics operations to increase their overall throughput, and to drive revenues as a result.
In addition to this benefit, throughput is increased with features that automate a range of key processes, including goods tracking, security checks, sizing, and weighing. This all helps to improve operating efficiency, delivering significant cost savings for logistics operators.
End-to-end goods monitoring and security
By monitoring and recording the entire goods loading and unloading process, the Hikvision solution creates an audit trail for every product passing through the site. This helps to improve the security of goods and to prevent loss of inventory, while also helping to determine responsibility where goods are lost or damaged. Information from barcode scanners can be cross-referenced with video footage to track goods and to detect and view incidents quickly and easily.
Excellent experiences for dock managers and drivers
Using the Hikvision solution, dock managers can handle their workloads much more easily and make the best decisions across a large number of vehicles and allocated docks.
Additionally, drivers get clear instructions on where to park and where to wait, and are able to load or unload much more quickly than would otherwise be possible. This gives them a far better experience and allows them to meet their demanding schedules.