Scheduling compound trucks with various arrival times in multi-door cross-docking

In this study, we are exploring the scheduling of the compound truck in the context of cross-docking while the arrival times of the trucks coming and going to the cross-docking center are different. The main goal is to assign the trucks to the doors at the dock and determine the appropriate sequence for them. This study proposes a mixed integer mathematical model to address these issues in multi-door cross-docking centers. Due to the NP-hard structure of the related problem, the proposed model in small size was solved using CPLEX 12.1. The simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm provides an effective solution short time in parallel machine scheduling problems according to the literature. Due to the similarity of the parallel machine scheduling problems with the considered problem, SA was proposed to solve the model in large sizes. The primary goal is to maximize shipping efficiency and productivity during a given working period. Various test problems are generated and compared to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed solution.