Cross Docking is the practice of unloading freight from a rail vehicle or truck and loading it onto an outbound rail car or truck that is headed towards the freight’s ultimate destination. This practice has been particularly prevalent in the LTL trucking business due to the efficient manner which it is in a position to consolidate freight from many different origin places onto vehicles destined for the exact same geographical region. Usually, the freight is transported from a supplier/ manufacturing facility to a distribution terminal and then transferred to an additional vehicle for delivery to the customer or retail facility.
This practice greatly reduces handling and warehousing time and in turn, creates a a lot more streamlined supply chain. At the distribution terminal the freight is received via an inbound access point, sorted into groups headed to the exact same location, and then moved across the dock to the outbound access point for reloading. The movement from car A to vehicle B across the dock is where the term cross-docking comes from. In today’s fast-paced globe, cross docking will turn out to be an essential practice for numerous organizations hoping to reduce warehousing and transportation expenses whilst at the exact same time decreasing the time it demands to deliver their item to their clients.
Benefits of Cross Docking
- Streamlines the supply chain from origin location to location location
- Much less inventory handling means decreased labor costs
- Reduces amount of warehouse space needed might get rid of warehousing from supply chain altogether
- Quicker delivery of product to retailer/ consumer
- Reduced risk of broken inventory due to handling
- Elevated retail sales space
- Consolidates numerous smaller loads into 1 mode of transportation
Speed and productivity of a supply chain are essential aspects of growth for any organization. Cross-docking is just 1 strategy that can be implemented to help attain a competitive benefit. Implemented appropriately and in the right circumstances, cross-docking can offer substantial improvements in efficiency and handling times.
What is cross docking?
Cross docking is a logistics procedure exactly where products from a supplier or manufacturing plant are distributed straight to a consumer or retail chain with marginal to no handling or storage time. Cross docking requires location in a distribution docking terminal generally consisting of trucks and dock doors on two (inbound and outbound) sides with minimal storage space. The name ‘cross-docking’ explains the procedure of getting goods via an inbound dock and then transferring them across the dock to the outbound transportation dock.
In simple terms, inbound products arrive via transportation such as trucks/trailers and are allocated to a getting dock on 1 side of the ‘cross dock’ terminal. Once the inbound transportation has been docked its goods can be moved either directly or indirectly to the outbound destinations they can be unloaded, sorted and screened to identify their end destinations. Following becoming sorted, products are moved to the other end of the ‘cross dock’ terminal via a forklift, conveyor belt, pallet truck or an additional indicates of transportation to their destined outbound dock. When the outbound transportation has been loaded, the goods can then make their way to clients.
When is cross-docking utilized?
The process of cross docking will not suit each warehouses requirements, it is, therefore, essential to make an informed choice as to whether or not cross-docking will improve the productivity, expenses and consumer satisfaction for your specific company. Cross docking can advance the supply chain for a variety of particular goods. For 1, unpreserved or temperature controlled products such as meals which require being transported as quickly as feasible can be benefitted by this procedure. Additionally, already packaged and sorted goods ready for transportation to a particular consumer can become a quicker and more effective procedure via cross docking.
Some of the primary factors cross docking is implemented is to:
• Provide a central website for goods to be sorted and similar goods combined to be delivered to multiple destinations in the most productive and fastest method. This process can be described as “hub and spoke”
• Combine many smaller sized product loads into one method of transport to save on transportation expenses. This procedure can be described as ‘consolidation arrangements’.
• Break down large product loads into smaller sized loads for transportation to create an easier delivery procedure to the customer. This process can be described as ‘deconsolidation arrangements’.
Hopefully, this weblog assists you in understanding the idea of cross-docking and why it is implemented into an organization’s supply chain procedure. The next component to this weblog will detail the benefits and disadvantages of cross-docking for a greater understanding of this procedure.
