A two-stage mathematical model for cross-docking distribution planning solved by a two-stage heuristic algorithm

Cross-docking is a logistics approach where products from a supplier or manufacturer can be moved directly to customers or retailers without handling or storage time. In this paper, a distribution planning problem with the cross-docking centers is taken into account. A new two-stage mathematical model is formulated to minimize total costs in the multi-echelon network for the cross-docking center location and vehicle route scheduling. Then, a new two-stage heuristic based on a simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is proposed as the solving approach. The algorithm is evaluated by several test problems in small and large sizes, and solutions are compared to traditional tabu search (TS) algorithm. The proposed heuristic effectively outperforms the TS in the reasonable time.