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Cross dock scheduling with fixed outbound trucks departure times under
substitution condition q
S. Rahmanzadeh Tootkaleh, S.M.T. Fatemi Ghomi , M. Sheikh Sajadieh
Department of Industrial Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, 424 Hafez Avenue, 1591634311 Tehran, Iran
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Nowadays, cross docking is used as a concept to improve the response time and it reduces the inventory
Received 7 February 2015 holding cost significantly. In some operational cases, inbound trucks leave the cross dock outbound doors
Received in revised form 27 October 2015 in predefined departure times. In this paper, we propose an inbound truck scheduling model based on
Accepted 3 December 2015
fixed outbound trucks departure times. Indeed, it is assumed that delayed loads are stored in temporary
Available online 11 December 2015
storage until the next outbound trucks departure time with the same destination. Furthermore, accord-
ing to the post-distribution concept, it is assumed the other destination loads can be replaced with the
Keywords:
delayed loads. This paper finds the best sequence of inbound trucks based on the loads substitution con-
Cross dock
Scheduling
cept. To solve the model, a heuristic algorithm is developed and numerical tests are given to compare the
Post-distribution results with the optimal solution. The results show using loads substitution concept will reduce cross
Departure time dock holding costs until 27%.
Product substitution 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Heuristic algorithm
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2015.12.005
0360-8352/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Rahmanzadeh Tootkaleh et al. / Computers & Industrial Engineering 92 (2016) 5056 51
cross dock environment and used a bounded dynamic program- departure time. This substitution characteristic will reduce inven-
ming to find optimal or near optimal solution. To decrease tempo- tory holding cost significantly (Shah & Avittathur, 2007; Smith &
rary storage level, Forouharfard and Zandieh (2010) scheduled Agrawal, 2000; Tan & Karabati, 2013).
receiving and shipping trucks in cross docking systems. They found This paper proposes a cross dock inbound truck scheduling
the best sequence of receiving and shipping trucks based on min- model to minimize the total inventory holding costs based on
imizing the total number of products stored in temporary storages. the post-distribution concept. Furthermore, it is assumed that out-
In the most cross dock scheduling researches, inventory holding is bound trucks leave the outbound doors in a predetermined time
considered to decrease as much as possible. Thus, this paper finds and the delayed loads are stored in temporary storages until the
the best sequence of inbound trucks through the minimizing the next outbound truck departure time with the same destination.
total inventory holding costs. As an operational technique, delayed products substitution is con-
On the other hand, some companies, especially in postal ser- sidered in this paper. This paper uses products substitution con-
vices and retailing industries use fixed outbound trucks departure cept in cross dock terminals to propose a Mixed Integer Linear
time for the steady and constant flow of product. Van Belle et al. Programming (MILP) model that minimizes the total delayed loads
(2012) expressed that in some cases, outbound trucks have to holding costs in a planning horizon (often in a day). Furthermore, a
depart in a certain due date. They explained in the operational heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the model in the best
characteristics section that in the parcel delivery sector, outbound solution and right time. Furthermore, we compared the effect of
trucks leave cross dock outbound doors at a fixed departure time. products substitution on the models objective value in many test
Boysen and Fliedner (2010) expressed in their paper that for the problems.
industries with small and low valued shipments, the delay of ship- The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the model
ment is not acceptable. They explained that the postal services and assumptions and notations and development of the model.
less-than-truck load service providers schedule outbound trucks Section 3 examines the problem complexity and develops a heuris-
based on the fixed outbound trucks departure times. They tic algorithm to solve the model. Section 4 is the conclusions and
assumed that the outbound trucks with a determined destination future research suggestions.
leave the terminal gates only in one departure time and several
departure times are not allowed to a specific destination in a plan- 2. Problem statement
ning horizon (24 h). These assumptions are not practical in some
postal services and retailing industries. In many postal services, Cross docking terminals are distribution centers that reduce
there are several predetermined departure times less than 24 h inventory levels and decrease the shipments delivery time signifi-
to a specific destination. So, it would acceptable for the managers cantly. In a cross dock center, inbound trucks unload their ship-
to send delayed loads with next outbound trucks in a planning ments in inbound doors and the loads are moved to the
horizon. Therefore, this paper proposes an inbound trucks schedul- outbound doors for consolidation and sending to the customer.
ing model considering a fixed departure time for outbound trucks As shown in Fig. 1, the inbound trucks unload their shipment in
and temporary storage of loads in a cross dock facility. It is the receiving area. The loads are transferred to the temporary stor-
assumed that delayed loads are stored until the next period (a time age for consolidation or storing to the next outbound trucks depar-
slot in a day). Furthermore, Ladier and Alpan (2013) assume prede- ture times.
termined departure times for the outbound trucks. In other In this paper, we assume that outbound trucks leave the cross
researches, Lim, Miao, Rodrigues, and Xu (2005) considered a fixed dock outbound doors in a fixed predetermined due date. Thus,
time window in truck door assignment problem for trucks loading the delayed loads must be stored in temporary storages until the
and unloading process. Based on the researches made, delayed next outbound departure time for the same destination. In our
loads are classified in two different categories (lost loads and trans- model, each inbound truck delivers multi batch of products based
ferred loads). In the first category, it is assumed that the loads on predefined customer demand. Moreover, each outbound door is
arrived after the outbound trucks departure time are lost and assigned to a specific customer. Therefore, the unloaded products
the cross dock scheduling minimizes the total lost loads (Miao, are transferred to predetermined outbound doors. We assume that
Lim, & Ma, 2009). In the second category, the delayed loads are the number of inbound trucks is more than the number of inbound
stored in temporary storage until the next outbound truck depar- doors and trucks unload their shipments in a sequence of time. In
ture time with the same destination (Boysen, Briskorn, & this paper, we schedule the inbound trucks unloading time to min-
Tschke, 2013; Van Belle et al., 2012). The current paper assumes imize the total inventory holding costs in a cross dock system.
that delayed loads are stored until the next period (a time slot in Moreover, to reduce the total inventories transferred to the next
a day). Moreover, it considers that inbound trucks shipment may period (next outbound truck departure time), the other destination
include multiple products. Thus, we consider multiple periods in products are replaced with the delayed loads as much as possible.
a day and inbound truck scheduling is prepared for multi-period, To simplify the model some assumptions are considered as fol-
multi-product problem (Rahmanzadeh Tootkaleh, Fatemi Ghomi, lows: (1) all inbound trucks are available at the beginning of
& Sheikh Sajadieh, 2014). scheduling horizon; (2) the inbound truck loads information cor-
In pre-distribution cross docking, suppliers bag and tag the responding to the type and the quantity of products are available
loads before transferring to the cross dock centers. When the pro- before the scheduling; (3) the unloading and transshipment times
duct holding cost increases, post-distribution cross docking is pre- for all product types are similar; (4) there are no limitations on the
ferred. So, in this paper, we assume that it would be acceptable for storage space as well as the material handling resources; and (5)
the cross dock managers allocate product to the customers them- splitting of the truck loads is not allowed and the all inbound truck
selves based on cross dock holding costs. According to the fixed loads are unloaded simultaneously. The model proposed in this
trucks outbound departure times, trucks must leave the cross dock paper extends the Rahmanzadeh Tootkaleh et al. (submitted for
outbound doors without the delayed loads. It would be applicable publication) model to a products substitution model. The model
to replace other trucks product with the delayed loads. Therefore, is formulated as an MILP problem.
after receiving the delayed loads to the outbound door, they are Following gives notations used in the model before its
replaced with the transferred load before the outbound truck development.
52 S. Rahmanzadeh Tootkaleh et al. / Computers & Industrial Engineering 92 (2016) 5056
The proposed mathematical model is presented in the next section. xktil1 2 f0; 1g 8i 2 I; t 2 T; k 2 K 13
In this section, a MILP model is presented and the model sched- Q ton P 0 8t 2 T; o 2 O; n 2 N 15
ules inbound trucks dispatching time based on minimizing the
products holding costs. The proposed model uses product substitu- Ston P 0 8t 2 T; o 2 O; n 2 N 16
tion concept to decrease products holding costs in a cross dock
center. C ti P 0 8t 2 T; 8i 2 I 17
XX This model is formulated as a MILP problem that schedules the
Min Z htn Stn inbound trucks unloading time to minimize total inventory holding
t2T n2N
costs. Set of constraints (1) guarantees that each inbound truck is
S. Rahmanzadeh Tootkaleh et al. / Computers & Industrial Engineering 92 (2016) 5056 53
assigned to inbound doors once per each period. Sets of constraints Theorem. The proposed model is NP-hard in strong sense.
(2) and (3) define the sequence of inbound trucks and express that
no more than one queue of trucks is scheduled in each inbound
Proof. This model is an extension of Boysen et al. (2013) to multi-
door. Set of constraints (4) determines the unloading time of
period, multi- product, and substitution condition problem. As it is
inbound truck i in period t. Set of constraints (5) determines the
presented in Boysen et al.s (2013) paper, truck scheduling problem
status of products (without delay loads or delayed loads). Set of
with fixed outbound departures (TSFD) is strongly NP-hard. So, the
constraints (6) balances the input and output of products in each
model proposed in this paper is NP-hard as well. Furthermore,
period. Set of constraints (7) expresses that the quantity of out-
there are several papers that express non-preemptive cross dock-
bound truck loads must be less than the sum of previous delayed
ing scheduling problems are NP-hard (Chen & Lee, 2009;
loads, without delay loads in current period, and substituted loads
Mosheiov, 1998; Van Belle et al., 2012).
from other destinations. Set of constraints (8) shows inventory bal-
ancing in scheduling horizon. Set of constraint (9) considers the
outbound truck capacity constraint to transfer the loads. 3.2. Heuristic algorithm
Constraint (10) expresses that the starting time of truck 0 must
be zero. The cross dock scheduling horizon is less than 24 h and the
In this model, after unloading process in the inbound doors, computation running time plays an important role in the man-
loads are transferred to the temporary storages. In order to the agers decisions. In this paper, a heuristic algorithm is developed
patching process in outbound doors, loads are transferred from to solve the model in a reasonable running time. To solve the
temporary storage to the related outbound door. Sometimes, model, an expression based on sorting the inbound trucks is devel-
according to inbound truck scheduling, the loads are prepared to oped. In this expression, important parameters affecting the mod-
send to the outbound doors after the trucks departure time. Thus, els objective function are evaluated and a sorting value is allotted
delayed loads must be sent at the next period. In this paper, to to each inbound truck. The decision expression developed in this
reduce the inventory holding costs, it is assumed the other out- paper is given by (18).
bound trucks products existing in temporary storage are substi- XP htn Ltion
tuted with delayed loads. These loads interchanges decrease the St; i n
18
inventory levels in a cross dock system significantly. Fig. 2 shows o2O
dto
loads substitution in a cross dock system.
where S(t, i) is defined as the scoring value of inbound truck i in per-
iod t. htn is the inventory holding cost of product n in period t and dto
3. Solution algorithm is the departure time of outbound truck o in period t. In this expres-
sion Ltion is defined as the number of product n transferred from
3.1. Computational complexity inbound truck i to outbound truck o in period t. This expression
shows the importance of inbound truck loads and inbound trucks
As shown before, the mathematical model proposed in this are sorted based on the increase in the expression value. Further-
paper is formulated as an MILP problem. It proposes an NP-hard more, a truck with larger score should be assigned in early schedule.
problem that is proved as follows: The heuristic algorithm is presented as follows:
3.3. Results
Fig. 4. Effect of product substitution on the cross dock inventory holding costs.
S. Rahmanzadeh Tootkaleh et al. / Computers & Industrial Engineering 92 (2016) 5056 55
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