A solution for cross-docking operations planning, scheduling and coordination

Crossdocking is defined as an operational strategy that moves items through consolidation centers or cross docks without putting them into storage. As the need to move inventory faster increases, more logistics managers are turning to crossdocking but the ability to execute such strategy well depends on good planning, scheduling and precise coordination. This paper introduces our research and development work on optimization of cross docking in three aspects: Optimized planning to group, cluster, sequence and allocate containers to docks; real-time scheduling handles the dynamics of container arrivals and actual pallet transfers; and cross-docking coordination conducts real-time task assignment/sequencing and resource management to deal with dynamic changes.