Your cross dock facility will be the heart of your business, so you will need to give a great deal of thought into its organization. In general, economizing space will help you save money, but you will also need to ensure that you have enough space to manage the loads that are moving through.
Determining the Proper Layout
If you are creating a truck reloading program from scratch it will likely be shallower than the system used to manage a group of warehouses and the additional resources necessary to manage your storage facilities.
- Areas designated for cargo redelivery can be shorter, focusing on offering conveyors at 90 degree angles moving at high speeds to make transit to different delivery vehicles as efficient as possible, rather than having to provide additional space for long-term storage.
- Your area used for truck loading can simply consist of a group of doors. The truck can back up to the building and load the given shipment.
- If you will be managing your cargo reloading in a facility that will be seeing a high volume of goods, you may need to dedicate different points of your setup to managing each type of shipment: this ensures products are not lost or sent to the improper venue.
- Whether or not each truckload of goods can be handled as it comes in or if it should be treated as a greater part of the day’s shipment will depend on how each shipment will be organized for delivery.
In general, the more distance you are putting between your delivery points, the more money you are costing your business. Your setup on the road and at your transfer facility should be designed as efficiently as possible to best manage your needs without having to waste time between shipments.