CROSS-DOCK SCHEDULING WITH ROUTING DECISIONS: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

Abstract

ABSTRACT Defining delivery routes is an effective way to reduce transportation costs. In particular, a cross-dock distribution center in a retail network requires coordinated decisions on delivery routes and internal operations, leading to the cross-dock scheduling with routing decisions problem. To the best of our knowledge, no empirical study has shown the advantage of integrating these decisions. Previous works mainly focus on fresh food distribution centers with specific operational features. Based on a retail network, we address this problem by developing two mixed-integer models: one basic and another with additional routing variables that improve the problem representation. Furthermore, we assess the importance of integrating routing and cross-dock scheduling by comparing integrated and hierarchical strategies. Overall, our results indicate that integration can improve the distribution system’s scheduling efficiency under different demand patterns and dependency levels between customers and suppliers.