Crossdocking insights from a 3rd party logistics firm in Turkey

In crossdocking, the inbound materials coming in trucks to the crossdock facility (CF) are directed to outbound doors and are directly loaded into trucks that will perform shipment, or are staged for a very brief time period before loading. Crossdocking has a great potential to bring savings in logistics; for example, most of the logistics success of Wal-Mart, the world’s leading retailer, is attributed to crossdocking. This paper firstly reviews different types of crossdocking. Then a case study that describes the crossdocking applications of a 3rd party logistics firm in Turkey is presented. It is found out that crossdocking brings new challenges, which should be resolved for successful operations. Many of the challenges faced by the described 3rd party logistics firm and the practical solutions the firm applies are applicable to other companies that are interested in applying crossdocking.