Title: Exact and heuristic methods to solve the two-machine cross-docking flow shop scheduling problem

Authors: Imen Hamdi; Yosr Hazgui

Addresses: High Institute of Transport and Logistics, University of Sousse, Tunisia; MODILS Laboratory, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Sfax, Tunisia ' High Institute of Transport and Logistics, University of Sousse, Tunisia

Abstract: In this paper we study the two-machine cross-docking flowshop scheduling problem. Cross-docking is an innovative logistical strategy in which a truck is unloaded from inbound (supplier) vehicles and directly loaded into outbound (customer) vehicules without storage in between or in less than 24 hours. We aim to determine the schedules of the inbound and outbound trucks in the crossdock while minimising the makespan. This problem is known to be NP-hard in the strong sense. We propose a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) which is tightened by adding valid inequalities. Also, we develop some heuristic methods which are based on some known and new priority rules. Then, we report the results of computational experiments on randomly generated problems.

Keywords: cross-docking; scheduling; mixed integer linear programming; MILP; heuristics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2021.119932

International Journal of Operational Research, 2021 Vol.42 No.4, pp.464 - 477

Received: 20 Jun 2018
Accepted: 13 Jun 2019

Published online: 04 Jan 2022 *

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