Answers to Facilitator's Question

The common operation requirements for both receiving and shipping dock are based on these few areas :


(1)Dock Safety Equipments:

Dock safety equipments are necessary as they would provide safety to the warehouse personnel and the vehicles. For example , the ICC bar lock device ensures that the vehicle is restrain to the unloading/loading dock. Once the operations had finished , the warehouse personnel will release the lock. Hence this will assure that operation will be done smoothly without any interference and danger.


(2)Dock Equipment:

Dock Equipment provides a bridge for the unloading/loading vehicle to the dock, so that product could be transfered using MHE to facilitate movement.


(3)Scheduling of Vehicle at the Dock:

Scheduling of vehicle is necessary for both at receiving and shipping dock. This is to avoid the possibilities of time wasted when other full load vehicle were in the line waiting to be unload. Hence it is also to curb material flow delay.


(4)Scheduling of Manpower:

If scheduling of manpower is not optimal at receiving/shipping area, there will be a bottleneck as there will be insufficient personnel to carry out a task. Hence, they will then need to process their operations faster which may lead to high errors . eg. indicating wrong location or dispatching wrong product to customers.


(5)Quality Assurance:

During receiving, the product quality must be check before storing them so that there are not any defects and further actions could be taken. For shipping, the quality of packaging materials, such as cartons, pallets that are shrink wrapped must be taken into consideration so that the products will reach customer in good condition.


(6)Updating of inventory:

For receiving, the updated information is to show the type and quantity of the products that has been transfered into the warehouse. Where as for shipping, the updated information is to show what products had transferred out of the warehouse. Inventory could be updated using Bar code scanning, RFID scanning or data entry.