Location-Allocation and Scheduling of Inbound and Outbound Trucks in Multiple Cross-Dockings Considering Breakdown Trucks

This paper studies multiple cross-dockings where the loads are transferred from origins (suppliers) to destinations (customers) through cross-docking facilities. Products are no longer stored in intermediate depots and incoming shipments are consolidated based on customer demands and immediately delivered to them to their destinations. In this paper, each cross-docking has a covering radius that customers can be served by at least one cross-docking provided. In addition, this paper considers the breakdown of trucks. We present a two-stage model for the location of cross-docking centers and scheduling inbound and outbound trucks in multiple cross-dockings.We work on minimizing the transportation cost in a network by loading trucks in the supplier locations and route them to the customers via cross-docking facilities. The objective, in the first stage, is to minimize transportation cost of delivering products from suppliers to open cross-docks and cross-docks to the customers; in the second-stage, the objective is to minimize the makespans of open cross-dockings and the total weighted summation of completion time. Due to the difficulty of obtaining the optimum solution tomedium- and large-scale problems, we ‌propose four types of metaheuristic algorithms, i.e., genetic, simulated annealing, differential evolution, and hybrid algorithms.The result showed that simulated annealing is the best algorithm between the four algorithms

Cross-docking with vehicle routing problem. A state of art review 1

Este artículo presenta una revisión al estado del arte durante los últimos diez años, de la literatura relacionada con las plataformas de intercambio logísticas, denominadas Cross-Docking. Este tipo de sistemas surgen como alternativa para reducir el costo logístico y el tiempo de respuesta al cliente. El objetivo consiste en simplificar algunos procesos tales como almacenamiento y manejo de materiales, a partir de la reducción de períodos de bodegaje y realización de surtida de materiales en los muelles de ingreso y salida de mercancía. En la primera parte, se desarrolla el concepto, su funcionamiento operativo y clasificación. En la segunda parte, se realiza un reporte de los trabajos más relevantes acerca de esta técnica. Posteriormente, se profundiza en este tema y el ruteo de vehículos simultáneos, haciendo énfasis en los métodos de solución, puesto que se trata de un problema de optimización combinatoria, clasificado como de alta complejidad computacional. Al final, se presentan conclusiones y la discusión.This article reviews the state of the art for the last ten years about the literature related to Cross-Docking. The Cross-Docking systems emerge as an alternative to reduce logistics costs and customer response time in some processes such as warehousing and material handling, times by reducing storage and picking, on the docks of inbound and outbound of vehicles. In the first part, the concept of Cross-Docking is developed, also its operating performance and classification. In the second part, a report on the most relevant works is done. Subsequently, it delves into the issue of vehicle routing and Cross-Docking with emphasis on methods of solution, since it is a combinatorial optimization problem classified as NP-hard. The document ends with the conclusions and discussion

Cross-Docking: A Proven LTL Technique to Help Suppliers Minimize Products\u27 Unit Costs Delivered to the Final Customers

This study aims at proposing a decision-support tool to reduce the total supply chain costs (TSCC) consisting of two separate and independent objective functions including total transportation costs (TTC) and total cross-docking operating cost (TCDC). The full-truckload (FT) transportation mode is assumed to handle supplier→customer product transportation; otherwise, a cross-docking terminal as an intermediate transshipment node is hired to handle the less-than-truckload (LTL) product transportation between the suppliers and customers. TTC model helps minimize the total transportation costs by maximization of the number of FT transportation and reduction of the total number of LTL. TCDC model tries to minimize total operating costs within a cross-docking terminal. Both sub-objective functions are formulated as binary mathematical programming models. The first objective function is a binary-linear programming model, and the second one is a binary-quadratic assignment problem (QAP) model. QAP is an NP-hard problem, and therefore, besides a complement enumeration method using ILOG CPLEX software, the Tabu search (TS) algorithm with four diversification methods is employed to solve larger size problems. The efficiency of the model is examined from two perspectives by comparing the output of two scenarios including; i.e., 1) when cross-docking is included in the supply chain and 2) when it is excluded. The first perspective is to compare the two scenarios’ outcomes from the total supply chain costs standpoint, and the second perspective is the comparison of the scenarios’ outcomes from the total supply chain costs standpoint. By addressing a numerical example, the results confirm that the present of cross-docking within a supply chain can significantly reduce total supply chain costs and total transportation costs