Solutions by typeLogistics efficiency
What happens on the ramp when nobody is watching?
A step that turns into a fall
It is 11:05 at dock 12. The trailer has crept forward a metre and pulled away from the door: between the truck floor and the yellow leveller there is now an open gap, and below it a metre and a half of empty air down to the yard. Inside the trailer a worker in a hi-vis vest is still stacking, with his back turned. He has not looked round yet. A forklift is coming towards the door with a raised pallet.
5 cameras across 3 sectors
This is how you ask for it
«Tell me the moment a trailer moves off the dock while the leveller is down or somebody is still inside.»
A metre-and-a-half fall with a pallet on top is not a scare: it is an ambulance, an incident report, an investigation and a warehouse at a standstill. And even when nobody falls, the ramp is paid for in small change every day: the queue of cars backing out into the street because the entrance is slow, the box that goes down the wrong chute and turns up four hundred kilometres away, the car driving up the down ramp.
You decide once
You decide this once. You say which ramps are watched, when the trailer counts as having moved, how many cars are too many on the entry ramp and who gets the alert: if the trailer pulls away from the dock while the leveller is down, alert the supervisor with the camera open and a call to the driver. IRIS applies it at every dock and on every shift, with nobody having to keep an eye out.
A ramp is a place where things move on their own. That is why it exists: so goods come down without anyone pushing them, so a car climbs without steps, so a trailer sits level with the warehouse floor. And that is why it is dangerous. On a ramp a small mistake does not stay put: it rolls. A trailer that creeps forward a metre. A box that drops into the chute next door. A car that gets the direction wrong on a curve between two floors.
A ramp is also always the narrowest point. People walk in, goods come down and vehicles drive up through the same place, in single file. When something jams there, everything behind it jams too: twenty minutes of queue out on the street, one stand packed while the walkway beside it is empty, twelve cars waiting at a ticket column. And whoever is inside the building, or up in the stand, cannot see it, because the problem is down on the slope. And there is one more thing, which on ramps is almost a law: the person in danger is always the one who cannot see the danger. The worker loading inside the trailer has his back to the door. The driver pulling away cannot see whether anyone is still inside. The car climbing the down lane cannot see what is coming until it is already on top of it. None of them is doing anything odd; they simply lack the one angle that would let them notice.
IRIS watches the whole ramp: the gap opening between truck and floor, who is still inside the trailer, how many cars are waiting and how long the last one has been there, which way the one climbing is going. When something falls outside what you decided, it says so at once, with the camera open and the video. It does not brake the truck or close the ramp: that belongs to the dock and to people. What it does is make sure the right person finds out while it can still be stopped.
What changes
Before, the only defence was that the man inside remembered to look and the driver did not pull away without warning. Now, the moment the trailer separates by a hand’s width, the supervisor has the camera open and the dock number, and the driver gets a call before the second metre. The entry queue works the same way: instead of finding out when it is already in the street, the second lane opens in time.
Where we have seen it
CAM-264The truck pulls away with a worker still inside
«Tell me the moment a trailer moves off the dock while the leveller is still down or somebody is still inside.»
CAM-463Six cars waiting and the queue is already out on the street
«Tell me when more than five cars are waiting on the ramp, and how long the last one has been there.»
CAM-484The ramp is packed and the concourse next to it is empty
«Tell me when more people go into a ramp than come out at the top for more than two minutes and the passage next to it is empty.»
CAM-267A big box dropping into the wrong chute
«Tell me when a parcel drops into a chute that is not the one on its label, and show me the picture of the label.»
CAM-469A car coming up the ramp the wrong way
«Tell me when a car comes up the down ramp or goes above the speed we have set.»
What it does not do
IRIS does not hold the truck. It is no substitute for the wheel chock, the trailer restraint or the dock light: those remain the first barrier and no camera replaces them.
And it does not know whether the person inside is one of your staff or the driver. It sees that somebody is in the trailer while the trailer moves, and that alone is reason enough to speak up. Who they are and why they were there is added by whoever watches the video.
Questions
- How does IRIS know the trailer has moved?
- Because it watches the gap. IRIS needs no sensor on the truck: it sees the line where the leveller ends and the trailer floor begins, and when a void appears there that was not there before, the truck has pulled away. It says so from the first hand’s width, not once you can see the yard underneath. The alert carries the camera, the dock number and the video, and if somebody was still inside the trailer it says that too.
- Does it work on a car park ramp too?
- Yes, and it is the same work asking a different question. In a car park IRIS counts how many cars are waiting on the ramp and how long the first one has been there, and alerts when they pass the number you set, so a second lane opens before the queue reaches the street. And it alerts if a car drives up the down lane, which on a curved ramp between floors is one of the worst things that can happen. The first is a number; the second is an alert.
- What about a parcel going down the wrong chute?
- That too, because it is the same scene: something going down where it should not. IRIS sees the parcel at the end of the run, sees which chute it took and compares that with the label it read. When they do not match, it alerts and stores the image of the label, which is what the person who has to retrieve it needs. A badly diverted box costs little if it is caught in the building and costs a whole trip if it is caught at destination.
- Do I need a new camera at every dock?
- Not at every dock, but you do need one that sees the ramp. The dock camera is usually set up to see who comes in, not to see the edge, and from there the gap between truck and leveller does not read. What is needed is a side view that catches the edge and the first metre inside the trailer. If you already have it, we use what is there. If not, it is one camera per dock area, not one per door.
Demo · IRIS at work
A new case each time. Always the same screen.
It plays by itself and shows one case from start to finish. It is a summary: the real screen has far more functions than fit in this box.
- Cameras on the map
- You draw an area
- What passed shows up
Not seeing yours here?
These words are the ones we have built, not the ones IRIS understands. The list falls short on purpose: you ask for it in a sentence, and sentences do not run out. Tell us what is in front of your cameras and we will tell you whether it understands it, or not yet.
And the best part
Whoever is on duty already has a job.Watching forty screens does not fit into the shift.
No shift has time to spare. IRIS watches all forty at once and brings only what needs to be seen, with its camera and its time. What happens next is that person’s call.
Tell us your problem and we will say whether IRIS understands it, or not yet.
We reply the same working day.