Use of visual planning to improve performance and manage operations of a manufacturing cross-dock

What is it about?

This article introduces a new focus for research on cross-docking warehouses by proposing a visual planning solution to manage daily operation. The article avoids complex optimization algorithms and it adopts concepts belonging to the lean management theory, and it shows the potential of visual planning techniques to improve performance of cross-dockings. Also, the case of a specific industrial context, i.e. an Italian company of the oil andand gas sector, is presented, to practically show how the visual management methodology ca nbe used to support cross-docking operations.

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Why is it important?

I'd say that many experts in warehousing/logistics would be very interested to read this paper and it would give them much food for thought (from the review report, 28/03/2018). Although the study reports a case study developed in a particular context, the proposed methodology and its underlying principles are general and potentially applicable to a wide range of cross-dockings. Also, the study proposes an analytical tool, namely the Safety Margin coefficient, that could be used for capacity planning purposes and to evaluate quantitatively the system performance at a given time instant.

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