Manual processes couldn’t scale
Union Beer’s dock coordination relied on pen-and-paper tracking. This sometimes led to door assignment mix-ups, delays and preventable safety risks. “People would send a driver to door 30, but there’s already a truck in door 30,” according to their Warehouse Manager, Nick Thompson. “Either they put the truck in a door you don’t want them to or they drive all the way back.”
Turnover in frontline roles made consistency difficult. Safety overrides on dock equipment were frequent, but invisible to leadership. A 20% increase in SKU count threatened to overwhelm their team’s ability to stay efficient without compromising safety.
Clarity for every dock door
Drawn in by its Live Operations View, Rite-Hite ONE first got Union Beer’s attention at a trade show. The ability to gain near-real-time visibility across all 34 dock doors immediately sparked his interest.
Since implementing the platform, Union Beer Distributors has gained powerful insight into dock activity. Utilization Analytics highlights which dock positions are overused, helping the team balance usage and extend equipment life. Paired with Trailer & Load Records, it’s now easier to assign positions more efficiently and distribute workloads evenly.
Safety Events & Patterns Analytics equips managers to proactively address near misses before they escalate. And with Live Safety Alerts, override behaviors are flagged in the moment, giving supervisors the visibility they need to enforce a consistent, site-wide safety protocol.
At first, I saw it as just a productivity tool. But once we got it in-house, I realized this is an equipment management and safety system, too.
Nick Thompson
Warehouse Manager
Efficiency without compromise
Even as Union Beer’s SKU portfolio grew by 20%, loading dock teams maintained their high levels of operational efficiency. With Rite-Hite ONE, data-driven maintenance helped cut downtime and service calls. Since implementation, they’ve seen manual overrides drop from 20–25 daily to just two on average.
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- Cut overrides by 90%, from 20-25 daily to just 2 on average
- Maintained operational efficiency even with 20% portfolio expansion
- Enabled data-driven maintenance, reducing downtime and service calls
- Improved carrier relationships by providing time-stamped proof in detention disputes
- Laid the foundation for Connected Service and tailored maintenance planning
Rite-Hite ONE didn’t just streamline the floor. It aligned safety, operations and maintenance around a single source of truth. As Nick said,
“Now my dock coordinator can keep assignments clean. Shift managers can monitor overrides. And I can track service history. That kind of visibility at every level is huge.”
