Food Logistics serves the entire food supply chain industry with targeted content for manufacturers, retailers, and distributors.
Issue link: https://foodlogistics.epubxp.com/i/195855
On busy cold storage docks the freezer section must be tightly sealed, but able to be rapidly accessed. This is pushing warehouses to install high speed door options like Turbo-Seal® Insulated doors by Rytec High Performance Doors. demo of the dock levelers for which Rite-Hite is named. Fleming was particularly interested in Rite-Hite's RHV Vertical Storing Dock Levelers. Vertical storing levelers provide maximum environmental control to a dock area, as their vertical design allows dock doors to close to the pit floor and helps keep dust, debris and rodents from entering a facility and eliminates the energy loss from a pit-style leveler when stored. It also improves security by minimizing the points of entry. Ultimately, Fleming put Rite-Hite levelers on all 15 dock stations in the new section of the Wichita warehouse. One station was built for deliveries from odd-sized trailers and open flatbeds using Rite-Hite's RHH Hydraulic Leveler. Since three of the docks were designed for smaller delivery trucks that would be loaded and unloaded with hand carts, they received Rite-Hite's RHM mechanical levelers. The inclusion of the mechanical levelers also provided LDF with a back-up loading option in case of a power outage. Finally, in 11 of the dock stations, www.foodlogistics.com Fleming installed the products he had been eyeing all along: Rite-Hite's RHV vertical storing hydraulic levelers, including two with extra-long 8-foot plates. LDF's vertical leveler installations also incorporated Rite-Hite's Drive-Thru Application, which lets trailer doors remain closed until the trailer is positioned at the loading dock. This allows for an uninterrupted cold chain and provides an additional level of security, with dock personnel having control over the trailer doors. "Since we want to maintain positive pressure and control temperatures and energy use, it was the goal never to have an open dock door," Fleming noted. "The new vertical leveler dock set-ups did precisely that." All the new dock stations were outfitted with energy-saving Frommelt soft-sided dock shelters, which are fully impactable and offer full-access sealing around the trailer, with two dock stations getting Frommelt's ComboShelter, which is designed to handle a wide range of trailers, including trailers with lift gates and other rear extensions. Energy efficiency was also addressed inside the warehouse. High-speed FasTrax doors were installed in four locations, including a high-lift model in the facility's keg cooler area. The FasTrax cooler doors use a unique Thermal Air System and InsulMax curtain, which combines an R-4 curtain with a thermal air seal, providing the tightest seal on the market. To maximize the effectiveness of the building's HVAC system, Fleming installed six HVLS fans in air conditioned areas, as well as another in a non-air conditioned space. HVLS fans are less expensive to operate and more efficient than smaller, high-speed fans and a single fan can cover an area up to 22,000 square feet. They are also quite energy efficient; a 24-foot diameter model uses 1,500 watts per hour for cooling and as little as 100 watts hourly for destratification at operating costs of as little as a few cents per hour. When used to supplement air conditioning, HVLS fans help lower a building's perceived temperature – which means thermostat set-points can be raised. Since energy costs are reduced roughly 4 percent for every degree the set-point is raised, a 3-4 degree increase in set-point can reduce energy consumption by 12-16 percent. The fans' cooling effect was immediately noticeable to LDF employees. However, Fleming found they delivered a safety benefit, as well. The increased air movement provided by the fans decreased humidity and minimized ceiling-to-floor temperature differentials, thus increasing the surface evaporation rate and helping eliminate moisture build-up on doors and floors. Once finished, the expanded Wichita warehouse provided LDF with the functionality, safety and energy efficiency Fleming had been looking for – but there was one surprise left in store. "After a couple of months of operation, our accounting staff asked me if we'd had an electrical meter malfunction or missed a reading, because the utility costs were coming in at one-half of projections," he laughed. "That's the kind of surprise we don't mind getting!" FOOD LOGISTICS • OCTOBER 2013 19