To ask if anyone has worked at a port or loading dock?

[hellokittymania]

If you have can you explain what a loading dock looks like and hoow things are put on trucks? Visually impaired and cant picture it. I wish i could visit a warehouse as my foundation course is in import export.

And is a fork lift like a crane? How do containers get placed on ships?7is crane driven onto the ship?

The items are packed into pallets. The fork lift lifts the pallet onto the lorry/ship.

You know you can use google to find out what a fork lift is....

I know what a fork lift is, its how the process is done and how things lok that dont make sense

A Fork lift is a little truck with two long metal square bars sticking off the font of it.
It drives along with them just off the floor and they go between the to layers of a pallet and then lift it up.
Fork lifts have a sodding great counterweight in the back to they do not topple forwards.

If you shop at Lidl, many of the goods are displayed on pallets and moved around on a "pallet truck" which is a simpler version with no lifting power.
The manager might be able to arrange a demonstration for you.

In a shipping situation, a forklift will be used to put pallet loads of goods inside a container.
Once the container is full then sodding great hooks link on to the slots in the corners of the container and a crane lifts it onto the ship.

Hope that helps
but do go to a Lidl as once you have an "image" of how pallets work, it will all start to make sense.

Is a warehouse the size of heathrow, for example ? I have no idea what loading docks look like. Can you think of something i might know to compare it to

You just asked if a fork lift was a crane? Are you sure you know what one is?
Why does it matter what a loading dock looks like?

Google it.

Peace yes that helped thanks

Sayyouwill, OP has said she is visually impaired and doing a course which looks at import/export stuff. That’s consistent with things I’ve seen her post on other threads. Why are you being so abrasive?

Have the posters asking OP to Google it actually read the bit where OP stated that she was visually impaired?

In an airport for cargo to go on planes, everything is just on pallets.
So the customs warehouse at heathrow is about the size of a really big supermarket and where you have the banks of shelves would be rows of pallets waiting to be loaded.

In a port, everything is loaded into containers well beforehand
the containers arrive by truck or train
"straddle cranes" move them around the docks

• think of a vehicle with the body WAY above the ground and tongs hanging down to grab the sides of the container

before the cranes (another really REALLY tall vehicle with an arm and a hook to hold the cables linked to the container) pop them on the ship

Are posters reading the OP? hellokittymania is visually impaired and studying import/export. She needs a verbal description of the physical process.
I've helped a local charity pack items into a container. They did it by hand and with a small forklift. I've only seen as far as the full container though so not sure of the details after it's taken to the dock.

OP
my best suggestion is to make friends with a kid who has a pile of lego and get them to build a model of a dock
(oh the hardship for them !!)
and then you'll be able to feel what the vehicles are like and how they move relative to each other

I used to work in customs clearance so have a fair knowledge of cargo movement systems

Ooh, along those lines - I'm sure there is loading dock playmobile available.

Warehouses can vary massively in size. Forklifts will then vary in size too. They are often arranged in aisles with shelving sets up the aisles, or if the goods are larger they might just be stacked on each other. Most warehouses I see have 13-26 aisles, ish. Alternatively they are sometimes divided into bays which go round the outside of the warehouse.

The forklifts are usually electric and are about 4ft wide. They usually have two prongs going up, which then have a "tray" made up of two more parallel prongs going horizontally. These can move up and down the vertical prongs. The horizontal prongs are then inserted into pallets so that whatever is on the pallet can be moved up and down and driven around.

For visualising a container, find your nearest "open storage" site - as they will be using old shipping containers.
Then you'll be able to go and feel the base structure that has the different slots so every container can be lifted by every type of crane.

They are two main sizes
20 feel long (about a minibus) and 40 feet

One of the most astounding things I ever saw was on a dockside when a welding kit started to blow back into the oxygen cylinders ....
the chap managed to throw the whole kit into a container and slam the doors shut.
When the cylinder exploded all of the "ribs" of the container popped outwards so it was sort of rounded
containers are made of 7mm thick steel .....
just imagine what that would have done to our building if he'd not shut the doors [wow]

Thanks, U'm redoing a module on physical distribution due in january and some of it is tricky. Packing and loading dangerous goods is one topic so trying to picture itju

I can't give any further help except to say I am looking at learning to drive a fork lift, but your course sounds really interesting, OP!

Ah OK
Hazardous stuff - the main issue is getting the labelling right and deciding what can be loaded with what in the truck or container.

eg when I worked in clearance a lot of stuff came in a "groupage" load
ie one lorry with six or seven pallets for different customers in it.

Flammable liquids could be shipped next to wool or cotton
but not synthetics
anything explosive had to go on the deck of the ferry, not on the lower decks and not through the channel tunnel
and the trucks had to have all of the right warning labels on the outside
(have they given you braille versions of them so you know the types and combinations)
and some haz mat can only be shipped in limited quantities so the truck could be 2/3 empty (but the supplier paid for all the empty space)

Its really like filling the fridge ... each thing has its place
some things need to be kept apart

Queen it is. Im the only visually impaired though and its a learning curve for everyone. I find podcasts and youtube easier but not much on physical distribution. Found incoterms in spanish on youtube so used that, but logistics and handling dangerous cargo and other things are harder

Peace, any idea if what you told me is on youtube in a webinar etc? I havent found much and rely mostly on youtube.

I can find 9 classes of dangerous goods but not the logistics

Hello hellokitty, sorry I don’t know anything useful to tell you but I hope you’re feeling more settled now and your foot is mending nicely.

Trying to think which incoterm and insurance for dangerous goods, will look at youtube. There are 2 papers for january,