Inbound and outbound flow integration for cross-docking operations

We consider the optimization of cross-docking operations at three INtermodal LOgistics Platforms (INLOPs) a large European car manufacturer (ECM). The planning horizon is week and time bucket day. An inbound flow products gradually received over by truck from inland suppliers, has to be loaded into containers which are then shipped offshore production plants. full content container must available INLOP enable its loading start, hence temporary storage needed. objective minimize an inventory penalty, computed as largest daily volume product observed horizon. current practice ECM first optimize trucks outbound independently, determine day each based on these fixed contents. propose integrate, within same framework, decisions both contents, involve complex constraints related dimensions weights products, with those scheduling loading. model resulting problem mixed integer linear program, we develop decomposition scheme for it, well fix-and-optimize matheuristic. perform extensive computational experiments real instances provided ECM. Results show that combination two matheuristics able generate solutions reduce average penalty 40%.