Simulation of RFID-enabled loading strategy for outbound logistics: A case study in Hong Kong

Outbound logistics usually involve the management of truck activities from guiding the trucks into the plant, assigning parking area for waiting and scheduling trucks for loading. However, some problems exist in the current FIFO (first in, first out) loading scheme. It is because when trucks arrive at the loading bay for loading, some products have not been finished with some percent still on the production line. This will make the truck wait in the loading bay for unbearable long time and block other trucks for loading. Consequently, the average time of trucks in plant will be increased while the throughput of trucks will decrease. In this paper, we present several alternative loading strategies by employing products information obtained by RFID technology and compare their performance with traditional strategies which don not use RFID. Performance measures include average waiting time for loading, throughput of trucks and percentage of trucks missing due date. Simulation models will be built for comparison under different strategies.