Loading dock danger: inviting terror through the back door.

The market for sidewalk bollards has soared since 9/11, as building owners and operators seek to prevent the possibility of bomb-filled vehicles getting close enough to their properties to cause significant damage.

Even so, some owners are much less careful when it comes to an area of the building that literally gives dozens of vehicles free access to buildings' interiors each day, the loading dock.

The scary truth is that only a small number of New York's office buildings have a system to manage loading dock deliveries that is capable of preventing just anyone from driving up, with just about anything inside their truck or van.

Whether their goal is petty crime or global terror, why would "bad guys" bother trying to sneak a bag past the security guards in the lobby when they can drive an entire vehicle into the loading dock unchallenged?

One software system that sorts out this mess is the Freight Management module offered by Shortpath, the building maintenance technology company where we consider things "easier done than said."

Our software is already in use at the Time Warner Center, Lever House and the MTA Building at 2 Broadway.

Edgar Rodriguez, President of the building security firm Custom Protective Services, explained the stakes that are involved in loading dock security to me in this way: "Every loading dock is a the vulnerable underbelly that can open a property to a multitude of potential risks."

Large office buildings receive hundreds of deliveries to their loading docks each day. Some public buildings have recognized the danger in their security contingency plans. For example, when the Homeland Security Department considers there to be an elevated risk of attack, these buildings tighten their loading dock policies, to prevent parking and container storage at the dock overnight.

For any semblance of security, managing that flow is critical. Shortpath's innovative software allows every single delivery to be quickly registered ahead of time via an online interface. Tenants can do this for themselves right from their desktop computers.

All deliveries are then combined into a single schedule. Security staff ensures that every arriving truck and van matches what's in the computer. Drivers with unscheduled deliveries, including those with evil intentions, are turned away before they have a chance to pull into a parking space.

Bringing loading docks into the era of the World Wide Web has other advantages, too. Tenants appreciate the ease of the process and owners and managers like being able to bill tenants for their precisely measured usage of what is, after all, a scarce building resource.

Loading docks should no longer be a risk. Shortpath's software lets them become both secure and efficient.

BY SCOTT MAGER

CHAIRMAN AND CEO 

SHORTPATH