Cross-docking

With high-volume products and a high inventory turnover or products with constant high sales quantities (e.g. items always sold at a low price) in particular, it makes sense to reduce the conventional inventory warehousing to a minimum or even dispense with it altogether.

In a logistics system such as this, the goods are pre-commissioned and pass via a trans-shipment platform, the cross-docking point, directly to the recipient, for instance a store branch. We speak of one-step or multi-step cross-docking, depending on whether the goods are delivered to the receiving branch “as packed by the supplier” or whether the goods are only bundled into logistical units and assigned to a branch at the cross-docking point.

• Increased efficiency in the supply of goods
• Inventory reduction along the entire supply chain
• Increased sales areas by reducing the inventory at the POS
• Increased availability at the POS due to shorter delivery times
• Cost benefit in transport logistics through greater utilisation of the HGVs
• Lower packaging costs thanks to consolidated shipments
• Reduction in ramp contacts at retail branches