Overhead Door Track Guards for Loading Docks

The Importance of Overhead Door Track Guards in Your Warehouse

The overhead doors that lead to the dock area are one of the most important parts of any warehouse. They protect your inventory, maintain the climate, and serve as the main entry and exit for products coming into and leaving the facility.

Clearly, being able to maintain the functionality of your overhead doors is crucial to running a successful warehouse. What you may not realize is that having a guard system for the track that runs your overhead doors is what properly protects this essential business asset.

Find out why you should be investing in overhead door track guards and how they can help you keep the warehouse on the right track.

Protect the Loading Dock Doors From Impact

Most warehouse leadership teams have one goal in mind — to keep the business productive while ensuring spending is kept to a minimum. If you have to repair or replace malfunctioning equipment all the time, it's costing you a lot of unnecessary money, which negatively impacts the budget and your ability to expand the business.

The main function of overhead door track guards is to protect the door and its track from costly damage. With forklift drivers and other employees moving about on the dock and trucks constantly coming in and out, it's easy for your loading dock track to continually get hit and, as a result, sustain a lot of wear and tear.

Overhead door track guards preserve the track by preventing employees from making contact with and damaging it. With durable, high-quality guards, you'll save more money in the long run.

Alert Warehouse Employees to High-Traffic Areas

In a busy warehouse with so many people, vehicles, and machines moving about, visual cues are essential to helping employees navigate the building safely and efficiently. The loading dock is one of the busiest parts of the warehouse, with trucks, package handlers, and forklift drivers all converging in this one area all day.

Fortunately, overhead door track guards are often painted bright yellow, so they're nearly impossible for most employees to miss. They don't just protect your loading dock. They also protect the people on it. Both pedestrians and forklift drivers can see them from far off.

These guards serve as a clear reminder to everyone that they're moving into a high-traffic area and need to be aware of their surroundings. This visual cue alone can help you reduce safety incidents near the dock (including employees walking off the edge of it), resulting in fewer reports to OSHA or days away from work for employees.

Reduce the Risk of Manual Injuries Among Employees

If your employees are hanging out on the dock, chances are they're inadvertently putting their hands in places they likely shouldn't be. That includes touching the overhead door track. Whether your door is motorized or has to be closed manually, this can be a safety hazard and lead to hand injuries for your employees.

Properly placed overhead door track guards remind employees to keep their hands off the track. If they forget, the guards make it difficult for them to unintentionally touch the tracks. This reduces the likelihood of a safety event even further, resulting in more protection for the warehouse and its employees.

Leave No Room for Potential Revenue Loss

According to recent data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, there are hundreds of yearly incidents of cargo theft throughout the country, including goods stolen from warehouses.

If the dock door track is damaged, chances are the dock door isn't working properly. A broken dock door system leaves the dock area and the warehouse vulnerable to theft, which can cause a significant loss of revenue.

Still, theft isn't the only source of revenue loss a broken door can bring. When the dock door doesn't close properly, you may have a hard time maintaining the right temperature inside the warehouse.

Not only can this make employees feel uncomfortable, but it can also cause product damage or contamination depending on what you're storing in the warehouse.

What's even worse is that constant damage is costly to fix. This means you're opening up the business to lose revenue from a variety of sources.

However, overhead door track guards can help you prevent all of these situations, keeping more money in the budget for growth activities.

Protect the Loading Dock Door and the Business With an Investment in Door Track Guards

Your loading dock door needs protection from potential impacts in order to stay functional. Without this protection, it's easy for it to become damaged from forklifts and other objects hitting it, which can lead to high replacement costs.

Overhead door track guards can protect your door from this damage and create a safer and more secure environment throughout the warehouse. In this way, overhead door track guards are about more than just protecting your door. It's truly an investment in the financial future of the business.