| Article ID: | iaor201525873 |
| Volume: | 7 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Start Page Number: | 174 |
| End Page Number: | 196 |
| Publication Date: | Mar 2015 |
| Journal: | International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics |
| Authors: | Yu Wooyeon |
| Keywords: | combinatorial optimization, scheduling, programming: mathematical, heuristics |
The objective of this study is to find the best docking sequences for trucks at each receiving and shipping dock as well as assignments of inbound and outbound trucks to docks to minimise the makespan of the cross docking system with multiple docks. The unloading sequences of products from inbound trucks, product routing, and routing sequences are also determined simultaneously. To solve the cross docking problem, two approaches ‐ a mathematical model and two heuristic algorithms ‐ were developed. Due to time complexity of the mathematical model, the lower bound of the makespan is developed to compare the performance of the heuristics. The results shows that the makespans found from the heuristics are very close to the lower bounds of the problems.