Title: Trailer to door assignment in a synchronous cross-dock operation

Authors: Yuval Cohen, Baruch Keren

Addresses: Department of Management and Economics, The Open University of Israel, P.O. Box 808, Raanana 43107, Israel. ' Department of Management and Economics, The Open University of Israel, P.O. Box 808, Raanana 43107, Israel

Abstract: With the advent of lean supply-chain management, cross-docking has become increasingly popular among shippers. Operating a cross-dock facility requires assigning receiving and shipping doors to trailers. The assignment determines the amount of freight handling within the cross-dock facility and therefore its efficiency. Due to the immense complexity of optimal formulations, dock-door assignment has been typically solved using heuristics. This paper discusses the existing approaches, and suggests a new optimal formulation, and a new heuristic approach for assigning cross-dock doors to trailers. In the process, the reader gains insight into several important issues related to dock door assignment.

Keywords: cross-docking; freight consolidation; freight handling; dock door assignment; linehaul; LTL breakbulk; QAP; quadratic assignment problem; lean SCM; supply chain management; trailer to door assignment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2009.024253

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2009 Vol.5 No.5, pp.574 - 590

Published online: 30 Mar 2009 *

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