4 Things to Look for Before Buying a Dock Board

We have recently received many requests from companies to bridge the difference in height and distance between the warehouse floor and vehicle in the most efficient way. Dock board is the most economical way to bridge the gap and does not require civil works like Dock levelers do.

Dock board helps loading economically

Here are four factors to take into account before asking for dock board:-

i, Determine the Safe Working Load of Dock Board - To determine the S.W.L two things has to be determined as shown below: -

Weight of the Unladen Forklift + Maximum payload to be taken = Load of the Dock board.

Weight of the forklift can be found on plates usually punched on the forklift or ask the manufacturer for the specifications.

ii, Type of forklift - electric or diesel / 3 wheeled forklift or 4 wheeled forklifts -  Take into account the differences in 3 wheeled forklifts and 4 wheeled forklifts.  If you are using a 3 wheeled forklift, then you will need to increase your dockboard capacity as the load distribution for 3 wheeled is different from four wheeled.  Electric forklifts usually has lower base compared to diesel ones so electric forklifts require longer slope to climb so an increase in length of the dock board may be required.

iii, Length of the dock board - You need to know the maximum difference between the height of the dock and the height of the highest truck bed.

iv, Determine width - The width of the dock board should be at least 45 cms wider than your widest equipment passing over the board. We provide standard 2.2 - 2.3 m width which is standard container width. The width are same in GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, UAE and Kuwait)


Height Differential = Maximum height of most trailers (container trailers have165 cms) - your dock height (you measure this).

Note that some of the container trailers in GCC come with 170 cms plus heights so we recommend getting longer dock boards.

Height Differential

If you want to get a quick quote for dock board which is economical, safe way to load please contact us after you have determined the information above.