For New Belgium Brewing Co., new dock equipment evened out bumpy transitions for lift-truck drivers, cutting down on damage to product and equipment. When New Belgium Brewing Co. was founded in 1991, "we didn’t even really have any docks," says facility/project manager Bruce Clark. But that has changed. The Fort Collins, Colo.-based company has grown to become the third-largest craft beer brewer in the country, with brands such as Fat Tire, Ranger IPA, 1554, and Shift. It’s now one of the nation’s 10 largest brewers, distributing its wares to 39 states and the District of Columbia. Since 1995, New Belgium has operated out of two facilities in Fort Collins: a 205,000-square-foot brewery and packaging center with 25 loading docks and a separate 180,000-square-foot distribution center with 20 loading dock bays. In the last five years or so, the brewer has experienced a growth spurt, with production soaring to more than 945,000 barrels in 2014 from fewer than 583,000 in 2009. But with more product coming through the DC, problems began to crop up. That was particularly true at the dock bays, where wear and tear were taking their toll on the equipment and the forklift operators who worked there. "We had a lot of equipment failure, which obviously increased the cost of repairs. We had a lack of safety procedures set up with our dock system. And then, we were getting complaints from employees [about] back, leg, and shoulder issues just from the rough approach from the leveler to the truck," Clark says. Travel across the transition areas of the dock—the places where the lip meets the dock, the leading edge of the lip, and the edge where the dock meets the warehouse floor—can cause whole-body vibration for lift-truck operators, explains Rite-Hite product manager Troy Bergum. "Whole-body vibration is […]