Study on Distribution Centre Based Supply Chains and Cross-Dock Simulations

Businesses are putting new strategies into place to satisfy the demands of their customers in terms of cost, schedule, and quality. One of these tactics is cross-docking, which is the practice of grouping items with various suppliers that are headed to the same location while requiring little to no processing or storage in between the loading and unloading of the cargo. This study aims to explore the advantages of having a cross-docking facility inside a supply chain. In this study, we use the open-source Java Simulation Library (JSL) to create discrete event simulation models. We are also working on adding cross-dock facility modelling to an object-oriented library used in supply chain simulations. The receiving, sorting, and load building processes are all included in the crossdock facility modelling. The operational performance of the cross-dock’s internal operations is not required, thus thorough modelling of the cross-dock’s resources—such as the quantity of employees and equipment—is not included in the modelling. However, as the focus is on how the cross-dock impacts supply chain performance, the flow, time delays, and inventory components are modelled. In order to determine the important aspects that significantly impact the performance of the two types of supply chains, simulation tests are carried out to evaluate the object-oriented library’s performance and compare the performance of two multi-echelon inventory networks with and without crossdocking.