Reducing labor costs in an LTL crossdocking terminal

Handling freight in a crossdocking terminal is labor intensive and therefor e costly because workers must unload sort, and transfer a wide variety of f reight from incoming to outgoing trailers. The efficiency of workers depend s in large part on how trailers are assigned to doors around the dock; that is, on its layout. A good layout reduces travel distances without creating congestion, but until now no tools have been available to construct such l ayouts. We describe models of travel cost and three types of congestion typ ically experienced in crossdocking terminals, and we use them to construct layouts that minimize the labor cost of transferring freight. We report on the use of our models in the less-than-truckload trucking industry, includi ng an implementation at a terminal in Stockton, California that improved pr oductivity by more than 11%.