Challenges in dock scheduling for a large warehouse, having 50+ dock doors

In a warehouse, appointments are created for dock doors that are used for loading and unloading of goods. This process is called dock scheduling.

A high turnover warehouse needs its dock doors to be utilized in an optimal way. This is especially important if we have a design that fosters dual purpose dock doors (both loading and unloading can happen through the same dock door). In order to get an optimal use we must understand and incorporate the volume and nature of work along with the inventory requirements to feed in for the loading, which can come in the just arrived trailer and in such cases unloading of this trailer has to take precedence over the loading activity in order to have better fill rate.

Scientific appointment scheduling can help in a positive way to manage the dock door schedules when fed with relevant and right data to dock scheduling tool. Dock scheduling tool can create optimal dock door plan by taking into account the workload for the day and their priorities and interlinking. This will make the warehouse to have a seamless operation throughout the productive hours of it.

 

 

A step ahead in dock door scheduling is dynamic scheduling with center of gravity calculations for the workload for the underlying transportation equipment. Say for example, if a receiving trailer is about to be checked into the warehouse, a large warehouse with 50 + dock doors, where to check in the trailer is an important factor for productivity. If the unloading trailer has inventory mostly skewed for a putaway of them at one end of the warehouse, checking in such a trailer in the other end of warehouse takes a huge toll on warehouse throughput and productivity metrics. Similarly if an outbound trailer has most of its pick in a particular area of the warehouse, docking the trailer closer to that area will reduce travel time and increase efficiency.