| dc.description.abstract | Cross-docking is one of the best warehousing strategies, but it also faces some
challenges in the supply chain. An ever-increasing and varied volume of goods and a
multitude of suppliers must be intelligently managed and coordinated in cross-docking
centers to meet customer demand. This thesis studied workforce utilization at a cross docking distribution center of fast-moving consumer goods in Vietnam. The facility is
known as a combination system of post-distribution cross-docking (in which bulk is
broken and goods are sorted by destination at cross-dock) and pre-distribution cross docking (in which goods are sorted by destination at the supplier’s facility before being
delivered to cross-dock). The aim of the thesis was to search for the optimal assignment
of workers assigned to inbound operations such as receiving goods, checking, sorting,
and temporarily storing in the warehouse. Simulation-based optimization approach was
applied to minimize the total number of workers to accomplish all activities with time
and workforce constraints. A simulation model was built in Arena software and the
optimum solution was found by the OptQuest tool for Arena. The results showed that
the optimal worker assignment indicated changes in staff allocation of each operation
and the total number of warehouse workers gradually decreased. Thus, the cross-dock
may reduce labor costs as well as keep the processing time of all actions at an acceptable
level. However, this thesis had some limitations such as not covering all uncertain
factors and all types of workers, as well as the limitation of simulation software. | en_US |
