Episode #1 – A podcast about truck spotting and why it’s important.
If you’re in the aggregate or chemical industries, you understand the importance of truck spotting for successful loading operations. Whether your facility manages as few as 25 or as many as 500 trucks per day, adequate safety systems including reliable fall protection and fall prevention for operators have the greatest impact on throughput.
In this episode of SafeRack Podcast, hosts Kenny Rogers and Ray Evans discuss the significance of proper truck spotting including topics such as loading arms and hoses, open and closed loading, ISOtainers, specialized safety cages, hatch access, as well as top and bottom unloading from truck and rail. Kenny and Ray share their years of experience using SafeRack’s best MSHA and OSHA-compliant customer solutions to address safe access challenges in the aggregate and chemical industries.
KENNY ROGERS
SafeRack’s Cement, Mining & Flatbed Fall Protection Specialist
An industry expert with 20 years of successful experience in business development and project management, Kenny has the ability to provide progressive, out-of-the-box solutions on complex plant projects.
RAY EVANS
SafeRack’s Bulk Chemical Market Specialist
With over 25 years of experience, Ray has been instrumental in collaborating with the top Bulk Chemical companies and works closely with local and national chemical trade associations keeping abreast of the latest legislative news and initiatives in the Agro Chem/Fertilizer, Petro, and Specialty Chemical space.
Podcasts
- Truck spotting with Kenny and Ray
The significance of proper truck spotting includes topics such as loading arms and hoses, open and closed loading, ISOtainers, specialized safety cages, hatch access, as well as top and bottom unloading from truck and rail. - Railcar Loading BOLOs
A discussion about the variables to consider when designing a safe and effective railcar loading solution - Design-Build Services
Explore the wide variety of loading and safe access applications we deliver. From simple loading spot upgrades and turn-key installations to more complex retrofits and complete rail, marine, and truck loading/unloading systems, the duo covers common concerns and requirements customers face when considering an install. - Soft Tissue Injuries
Solutions for avoiding the most common workplace injury, soft tissue damage to muscles, tendons, and ligaments. - Preparing for Modular Stair & Ramp Installation
Guest hosts Billy Lippert and Eli Boyd from Upside Innovations discuss how the Apex System makes ramp deck step installations straightforward and successful.
Transcript
[Kenny Rogers]
Hey. I’m Kenny Rogers. I’m a vertical market specialist for cement aggregate mining here at SafeRack?
[Ray Evans]
And I’m Ray Evans. I’m the vertical market specialist for bulk chemicals. We also include agro chem petrochem and specialty chemicals.
[Kenny Rogers]
We’ll talk a little bit today about truck spotting and why it’s important to customers. A lot of times in the cement and aggregate world, we see a lot of trucks coming through. It could be as little as 25 trucks a day, but it could be up to 300 350, depending upon the type of industry. Frac sand can see up to five, 600 trucks a day when it’s really busy.
[Kenny Rogers]
And that creates obviously some safety issues when you’re out there The more throughput that you see, the more chances for people to fall. And that really puts a big strain on putting in a very good, safe system for cement in aggregate.
[Ray Evans]
Exactly. In the bulk chemical world, we don’t see as much traffic as you guys do, but we want to have a safe environment for the operators when they’re working on top of a truck or railcar. So, yes, spotting is important as well.
[Kenny Rogers]
So whether it’s one or two a day like you’ll see in the chemical world or 600 a day, we want to talk a little bit about why putting the trucks in the proper spot makes a big difference. You know, with Ray, he has to deal with loading arms. I don’t really deal with that a lot. Tell me a little bit about why loading arms are important with spotting in the chemical world.
[Ray Evans]
Well, the loading arm can only be so long, so we need to make sure that the truck or the real car is spotted correctly. You can have an open hatch loading you can have a closed hatch. We’re dealing with some environment, some really nasty chemicals as well. So you’ve got an operator suited up. You need to have a safe work environment.
[Ray Evans]
So spotting is very important. That’s right.
[Kenny Rogers]
So you just have trucks in your industry, typically pneumatic hopper trucks or sandboxes or what you’ll see with submitting mining. What about the chemical world? What do you know?
[Ray Evans]
And a lot of the aggressive chemicals we’re dealing with are ISOs, right? ISOs are those little framed units that are 20 by eight-foot-tall and they have a limited walk surface on top of there. So we need to make sure that when that pulls in our solution, the operator is going to be able to safely make his connection on top there, either with a hose or with a loading arm.
[Kenny Rogers]
So you’ll see ISO, which is used to travel overseas, you’ll see chemical I guess just regular chemical liquid trucks.
[Ray Evans]
Correct. You’ll see small acid trailers. They’re kind of challenging because they’re usually loaded from the rear and their smaller diameter trailers. So that can kind of create a challenge. So spotting is important there. If you’re loading plastic pellets, they’re going to be the three-chamber trucks so we need to make sure that we can access all that either through a tracking gangway or a wide gangway with the safety cage.
[Ray Evans]
But all spotting is very, very critical for that as well.
[Kenny Rogers]
You have a lot of stuff that we really don’t deal with. Basically, it’s just hatch access and it typically is from the top. We’ll do some bottom unloading from railcars occasionally, but you know that it’s not very hard to set up a gangway that goes to the top of a railcar typically. What are some of the challenges you have?
[Kenny Rogers]
Some of those struts have crash boxes or cages on top of them to where a gangway interferes with the gangways to go up there. Whenever you’re spotting those trucks.
[Ray Evans]
It really depends on the segment. Okay. So on top of an ISO, no, it’s just going to be a flat walk surface up there with the acid trailers. Yeah, there’s like a little platform on the side of the trailer and that can be kind of challenging, not only spotting. We need to make sure our platforms are up high enough so that I can traverse over and get and get a gangway and have the safety cage so it’s not too big so that you could fall off the outboard side.
[Ray Evans]
So we see that occasionally. So in my world, we see a lot of different configurations.
[Kenny Rogers]
So when we have our operatives go out and take a look at some of these applications, you know, you have to take a holistic view of what’s going on out there, right? Absolutely. The different types of railcars, trucks, the dams on top of them, also, you know a little bit about the space going into and out of these loading spots is not an issue with what you do.
[Ray Evans]
Absolutely I probably say 65 to 70% of what the reps are bringing to me. These are existing facilities and they didn’t have any type of full protection. And it’s like, how do we get a solution in there in a confined space or a space constraint?
[Kenny Rogers]
Yeah, I see a lot with our terminals in our plants that are out there. They were built years ago and a lot of them are in urban environments now. They used to not be, but the cities have grown up around them. Sure. Some of them were 70, or 80 years old. Sure. So when we go out there, we really have to have an experienced view on how to lay our equipment out because they don’t have a lot of space.
[Kenny Rogers]
These trucks are coming in and out of terms, going into the silos, and that makes a big difference whenever you’re laying out our equipment because it could be if they’re coming into a turn, you know, the radius is different, the coming out of a turn. So you could have shorter, longer equipment. You may need bigger cages for certain applications because they.
[Ray Evans]
How do you address that? Can you offset a cage if you’re coming around a corner? Or how do you what’s the best solution?
[Kenny Rogers]
Well, I mean, that’s a great segway into why some of the equipment is different and submit in aggregate, we have these specialized cages that have to fit on tops of these hatches that whenever they’re opening left, right, throw it back, which you don’t see a lot of. We have to have specialized cages that work for those particular hatches.
[Kenny Rogers]
And we’ve worked with the major manufacturers over the years to come up with solutions that they like. It’s been a customer-driven kind of voice of the customer, and it’s worked out pretty well. We’ve been the Go-To Company when it comes to safe access equipment for the rail and truck and submitting an aggregate.
[Ray Evans]
Gotcha.
[Kenny Rogers]
How about over there in the chemical world?
[Ray Evans]
Similar talking about space constraints. A lot of times there might have been an access gangway or some sort of plank that goes down to meet the truck. But back in the day, there was no mention of fall protection, which wasn’t even on anybody’s radar. So the challenge is if you’re up underneath the existing canopy you need to spot the truck correctly so that when the cage comes down because now we’re adding a cage and then so you have an existing loading arm to make sure that all works in harmony.
[Ray Evans]
And it can be a challenge at times.
[Kenny Rogers]
Yeah. I’ve seen a few locations where you have these racks that are just clustered with a bunch of different equipment you know, you have lines for products that go up there. Don’t see that as much in aggregate. There’s a whole other host of challenges that you see. Whatever you’re making sure that you spot their vehicles properly and navigating some of those issues that you have on the racks themselves.
[Ray Evans]
Spotting is so important because now with the ocean moisture, we need to make sure that we adhere and actually our solutions actually meet and exceed all the OSHA regs. So OSHA minimum you have to have a gap of fewer than 19 inches. Personally, when I’m working with our reps, I like to help design a solution. So when that cage sits down on top of that truck, we’ve got about 12 inches or less.
[Ray Evans]
That’s what I like to see.
[Kenny Rogers]
Yeah. You really talk a little bit about how the loading rack industry has evolved. You know, the rolling stock really doesn’t have any guidelines, hard guidelines to follow. And what we have done as a company is adopted. The platform regulations over to the rolling stock which has a 19-inch gap obviously apply to the platforms and handrails that people walk on daily within these facilities and we’ve taken it to the next level.
[Kenny Rogers]
I know that you know, that MSHA is the guiding force in cement in aggregates, not OSHA for the most part. There would be some terminals that do follow in the offshore, but if there’s a mine involved and the name comes into play, but that 19-inch gap has slowly come down, this new cement cage can put that gap down to as little as five or six inches, which makes the cut the customers feel more comfortable and more importantly, the operators that are tops of those.
[Ray Evans]
Absolutely. Absolutely. We’ve had some customers out there that want to have less than 12 inches. So that creates more of a challenge. But with our once we get accurate measurements out in the field, we know platform heights, we know the vehicle heights. We can work with our engineering design team and we can come up with a solution to meet their meet requirements.
[Kenny Rogers]
Are you seeing that some of your customers out there have more stringent regulations than OSHA within that gap?
[Ray Evans]
Absolutely. As I was alluding to, I’ve seen it as low as nine inches. They want to have less than a nine-inch gap.
[Kenny Rogers]
So that is a policy in some of these. Yes.
[Ray Evans]
Yes. It’s not written in stone for everybody, but these are specific company standards that they have. Correct. And we actually have different solutions for that.
[Kenny Rogers]
So they’re trying to become safer. I mean, they obviously have put a big emphasis on going above and beyond what is required through the regulation.
[Ray Evans]
Exactly. And we can help those customers meet those criteria.
[Kenny Rogers]
Gotcha. So as far as the spotting goes with the trucks themselves, I know that in cement, what we’ll see is there are some physical barriers where they can put inline speed bumps, things that not only can you see, but the trucks can feel by going over if those barriers aren’t in place and these trucks tend to drift away or too close to the platforms, which could do to a couple of things one, the equipment not going to work properly that that’s the biggest thing.
[Kenny Rogers]
Right. But if they miss a spot and the equipment hits the top of the vehicle, sometimes it could damage our equipment, which is bad in itself. Right. Because it creates additional unsafe environments. And with that big cage is really easy for it to hit the vehicle before it goes down properly unless there the trucks come in at the exact spot.
[Ray Evans]
So then you’re suggesting like lineman guides or maybe the operator or the plant manager paint some lines on the driveway for the trucks to align themselves up properly.
[Kenny Rogers]
You know, at a minimum lines or better if you have barriers.
[Ray Evans]
Barriers or bollards or something like physical.
[Kenny Rogers]
Barriers, you know, trucks can move a lot of these out of the way and damage them. So customers who use, you know, some alignment tools that can take some abuse is probably better than, say, putting in Jersey barriers or something like that where, you know, they can damage the equipment, damage the trucks, I should say they’re coming in.
[Kenny Rogers]
And, you know, I’ve seen that those are better solutions than these big curbs that are put out there. Sometimes, you know, drivers do have a mind of their own. Sure. Sure. They do take out the equipment and, you know, kind of less is more has worked out better in my opinion.
[Ray Evans]
So if I’m understanding you correctly, if you spot too close to the platform, the gangway may not come down properly. You’re going to have a huge gap on the outboard side. And inversely, if they spot too far out, your gangway goes down and there’s a gap they’re going to have to jump over to get to the top of the truck.
[Ray Evans]
Is that correct?
[Kenny Rogers]
Absolutely.
[Ray Evans]
So that’s what we want to try to prevent.
[Kenny Rogers]
Yeah. Yeah. There’s a misnomer out there that you can just by gaining gangway in a cage and it just operates properly. You really have to educate the drivers. You have to put in these protocols or these barriers that allow the trucks to properly be spotted for our equipment to work properly so I guess that kind of concludes what we’re talking about today.
[Kenny Rogers]
You know, there’s one takeaway that we would like to get across is the fact that you know, our equipment although, you know, it’s made to provide the greatest coverage in safety and full protection that’s out there. It doesn’t work properly unless you go out there and you put in measurements to put the trucks where they’re supposed to be.
[Kenny Rogers]
Anything closing for you? Right.
[Ray Evans]
No. This was a good topic. Thank you, Kenny, for your time this morning as well. Catch us on our next podcast.
