A bounded dynamic programming approach to schedule operations in a cross docking platform

Cross docking is a logistic technique employed to reduce the inventory holding, order picking, transportation costs as well as the delivery time. Products arriving to the cross dock are unloaded from inbound trailers, possibly reconsolidated with other products arriving from different destinations and loaded into outbound trailers within less than 24 h. In this study, we consider a multiple receiving and shipping door cross dock environment. The objective is to find optimal (for reasonably small cross docks) or near optimal (for larger cross docking facilities) scheduling policies which minimizes the total costs related to the transshipment operations at the facility.