Enhancing simulation as a decision-making support tool for a crossdocking center in a dynamic retail-distribution environment

To ensure just-in-time shipments from a general non-automated retail-cross-docking center, different items must be handled efficiently by different processes despite the many inbound shipments and frequent demand orders from retail stores. In this paper, a systematic and flexible procedure is proposed that efficiently provides critical decision-making support to logistics managers to help them understand and validate the material handling operation at a real retail-cross-docking center. The proposed procedure considers dynamic logistics operation information, such as inbound schedules of suppliers, demand data from retail-chain stores, and individual operator schedules. This detailed data is required for the performance of simulation. In addition, the procedure is applied to an actual non-automated retail-cross-docking center to confirm its effectiveness. Furthermore, the proposed method was found to be both practical and powerful in assisting logistics managers with their continuous decision-making efforts.