Simulation for PI-Hub Cross-Docking Robustness

Abstract

Cross-docking is a logistics process which consists in receiving goods through unloading docks and then transferring them to the outgoing docks with almost no storage in between. A new concept named Physical Internet is applied to logistics based on the metaphor of the digital internet to improve the flexibility and synchronization of logistics systems. This paper presents a set of simulation scenarios of a real cross-dock facility of an industrial partner to compare the performances of the cross-dock with those of the PI-hub and to evaluate the contribution of the implementation of Physical Internet in cross-docking facilities. In this paper, two simulation models are proposed to compare performances of a classical cross dock and a PI-hub under the same flow of products and inter-arrival time of inbound and outbound trucks. Several scenarios are presented to test the robustness by changing the synchronization and the inter-arrival time distribution. To compare the performance of the cross-dock facility and the PI-hub, several key performance indicators (KPIs) are considered, such as waiting time, number of trucks waiting, resources usage and cycle time of the products.