At a dockless site the goods leave the warehouse door, travel a few metres in open air and are handed into the back of the vehicle. The loss builds up in three places: the time the warehouse door stays open, the metres the goods spend uncovered and the minutes the vehicle door waits open. Which one dominates differs from site to site, so measure before deciding on a dock or equipment.
| Measure | What it shortens |
|---|---|
| Loading in rounds; staging goods by the door and handing them over in one go | Open time of the warehouse door |
| A shaded area | The effect of waiting in the sun at summer midday |
| Opening the warehouse door only when the vehicle is ready, closing both when loading ends | Minutes both doors stand open together |
| Placing goods in a closed insulated volume inside the warehouse | The effect of the metres and minutes spent outside |
For one week, record for every loading when the goods left the controlled area, entered the vehicle, when the door closed and when handover took place, plus how many minutes the door stayed open. Link entries to shipment code and responsible person; if goods wait outside, add the place and shade condition. If you measure, note device ID, location and whether the channel reads product or ambient.
Then pick one measure from the table and measure again with the same time fields. For a site with one dispatch a day, total open-door time stays small and a dock is usually unnecessary; as dispatches grow, the total climbs quickly. Dispatch counts and loading times, not a feeling, show when a dock is worth discussing.