A Truck Scheduling Problem for Multi-Crossdocking System with Metaheuristics

The cross-docking is a very important subject in logistics and supply chain managements. According to the definition, cross-docking is a process dealing with transhipping inventory, in which goods and products are unloaded from an inbound truck and process through a flow-center to be directly loaded onto an outbound truck. Cross-docking is favored due to its advantages in reducing the material handing cost, the needs to store the product in warehouse, as well decreasing the labor cost by eliminating packaging, storing, pick-location and order picking. In cross-docking, products can be consolidated and transported as a full load, reducing overall distribution costs. In this paper, we focus on a truck scheduling at the multi-door, multi-crossdocking network with inventory constraints and process capability constraints. In this model, a truck can visit severals docks for loading or unloading many types products. This situation is very common in reality. This study also developed an exact mathematical model using mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) with the objective of minimizing the makespan to obtaint the benchmark in small scale problems. Large scale problems are solved through Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm and Tabu Search (TS) algorithm. Performance of these algorithms will be compared to benchmarks obtained from solver as well as to each other.