OPTIMIZING DOCK CONFIGURATION AND STAFFING IN DECENTRALIZED RECEIVING

In manufacturing facilities, shipping and receiving traditionally have been concentrated in one or two areas of the building. The widespread introduction of just-in-time shipping policies in US manufacturing co mpanies during the past 15 years, as well as the common use of decentr alized receiving in the Japanese automobile industry, has motivated th e consideration (and occasionally the adoption) of dock configurations to support decentralized receiving (also known as perimeter receiving ). By providing multiple access points along the perimeter of the buil ding, decentralized receiving generally reduces the time and cost asso ciated with moving purchased parts to the locations within the facilit y where they are used, but also results in increased cost of construct ion, maintenance, and operation for docks and associated truck access/ egress, as well as additional interior floorspace requirements. We dev elop an optimization-based procedure to determine which of several pos sible dock areas to construct, how many doors or gates each should hav e, how many unloading and internal material handling staff should be a ssigned to each group, and which inbound materials each group should h andle. We consider the amortized cost of constructing and equipping th e docks, the amortized cost of material handling equipment to support the unloaders and material handlers, the cost of operating the materia l handling equipment, and labor costs for both unloading and internal material handling.