Cross Docking refers to the process where goods are directly delivered to customers or retail stores with minimal or no storage in between. The procedure of cross-docking is carried out at a docking distribution station where products are stored temporarily to enable a continuous flow of inbound and outbound transportation.

Cross-docking is a process that facilitates time-specific distribution and delivery of goods while staying in sync with the demands. Even though retail and parcel-delivery sectors primarily practice cross-docking, it is equally relevant to other industries such as manufacturing and import-export, if executed judiciously.

Types of Cross-Docking

• Manufacturing: The process of “manufacturing cross-docking” refers to receiving inbound products that are required for the production of goods. These goods are often collected and consolidated to form sub-assemblies for optimal production of goods.
• Distribution: Often, many inbound products are received from different suppliers. These multiple products are made into a kit, and then delivery to the customer is executed—for example, a desktop computer. The components of a desktop computer can be outsourced from different suppliers, combined into one kit and delivered to the customer.
• Transportation: Transportation cross-docking utilises LTL (less than truckload) or FTL (full truckload) vehicles to facilitate the delivery of products from different vendors, and the requirement of storage is eliminated or marginalised. This method is implemented for the delivery of perishable goods or shipments, such as 24-hour delivery or 12-hour delivery.
• Retail: As the name signifies, the procedure accounts for the collection of products from different vendors; these products are then consolidated into outbound trucks for delivery to different retail store locations. For example, Walmart uses cross-docking for distribution of goods to all its retail stores.

Why Choose Cross-Docking

Cross-docking enhances the distribution and delivery of many types of products. First, temperature-controlled products - goods that need to be transported immediately with limited or zero storage time. Second, products that are packaged and consolidated beforehand for the customer and final delivery is the only task in hand.

Why is cross-docking implemented?

• Products are collected at a central location, sorted and combined for quick and accurate disposition of goods to retail stores or customers - also known as the 'hub-and-spoke' method.
• Cross-docking ensures time and cost benefits by deploying better utilisation of transportation assets and storage capacity, helping brands achieve economies of scale.
• Cross-docking allows companies to eliminate inventory management costs while maintaining functions that add value to the delivery of goods such as consolidation and quick-shipping.

Stockarea is a quick and convenient way to manage, store and fulfil inventory via a network of hundreds of warehouses across India. Warehouse partners at Stockarea offer tailored warehousing solutions anytime and anywhere. Stockarea’s cloud platform ensures seamless order management, a single support system and real-time visibility over your inventory and orders that involve cross-docking. Talk to us regarding your cross-docking requirements, and we’re here to help anytime.