A Bi-Objective Possiblistic Programming Model for Truck Scheduling in a Cross-Docking System with Flexible Dock Doors Considering Transshipment Time

Through a cross-docking strategy in logistics, goods are unloaded from inbound trucks and loaded onto outbound trucks with minimal storage. The management of equipment and manpower involved in unloading goods, moving them within the terminal, and reloading them on outgoing trucks is one of the most challenging aspects of cross-docking management. In this paper, a new bi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model is presented for scheduling incoming and outgoing trucks in a cross-docking terminal with flexible doors, where the distance between doors and the time for moving trucks inside the cross-dock are also taken into account. As a first objective, the proposed model attempts to minimize the total operation time, and as a second objective, it aims to manage the equipment and manpower required in the cross-docking terminal by minimizing the number of doors involved in unloading and loading operations. Considering the uncertainty of the parameters, triangular fuzzy numbers are used to deal with the uncertainty, and a hybrid solution approach is developed for solving multi-objective possibilistic programming problems. The proposed model and solving approach are used for scheduling incoming and outgoing trucks at a cross-docking terminal as part of a food and beverage-producing group, and the results are compared with two existing methods. The results show that the proposed method performs better compared to existing methods