Atish Jadhav

Even if Cross-Docking was used popularly in the trucking industry in 20s and later in military operations, Wal-Mart started using it in 80s and made it popular in retailing. Cross-dock is essentially a process in a warehouse/ facility. In this process, movement of products/ goods from receiving door to shipping door happens without/ minimal handling of materials and with no storage. Among many of the other reasons - saving cost in storage and delivery, faster time to market, reduced space requirement, time effectiveness in fulfilling JIT manufacturing, and improved economies of scale for retailers and transportation, are the main reasons because of which organizations are inclined to extend their supply chain capabilities to adopt this process. However, retail organizations may have to consider many of the other aspects before adopting cross docking. Let us consider few of the important factors which may individually or in combination with other factors influence the decision