Cross Dock, Sortation, Revenue Recovery

Cross Dock Systems, Sortation, and Revenue Recovery

Ecommerce has turned traditional supply chain and delivery on its head. The introduction of “last mile delivery” and zone skipping in shipping has created many types of specialty operations and delivery networks. Additionally, the volume of parcels and small packages has dramatically increased over the past several years with ongoing upward trend. Cubiscan Integration Services has been instrumental in assisting operations in need of receiving, auditing weight and dimension, and in most cases sorting for various destinations. Companies such as Amazon, Walmart, and many others continue looking outside of traditional shipping methods to streamline shipping and distribution. CIS provides turnkey systems both as standalone systems as well as fully integrated systems to meet current and future demands.

Typical systems include:

  1. Induction – manually fed or integrated to existing conveyor
  2. Gapping – automatically meter packages to ensure proper spacing
  3. Scanning – manual or fully automated scanning from 1 or more sides
  4. Weight and dimensional data capture – All Cubsican systems are NTEP approved. This is critical in revenue recovery to certify as Legal for Trade (LFT)
  5. Optional sortation to 1 or infinite number of lanes

CIS utilizes best in class hardware and software to receive, identify, weigh, and dimension pallets and large freight items for cross docking operations. Some operations require pallet handling while other systems are dedicated to using conveyor for individual products to receive, ID, and sort to the proper shipping line.

Cross Docking Operations

There are many types of operations fit for cross docking. Many warehouses receive several truck loads of product in multiple shipping lanes, often times having several bay doors occupied. The idea is to receive and transfer these items with minimal intervention, less labor, and with a high degree of accuracy and dependability.

narrow belt sorters

As trucks or overseas containers arrive to the warehouse or distribution center, operators offload pallets or single items (boxes, bags, etc.). Even paper based operations have a great opportunity to use semi-automated processes to receive and cross dock product more efficiently.

Individually Packaged Items Not on Pallets

  1. Typically an extendable or flex conveyor is moved to the trailer to offload materials.
  2. Workers offload boxes to the conveyor to be transported into the receiving system.
  3. The fixed conveyor system has scanners to scan and identify each box.
  4. Each box is transported and diverted to the proper shipping lane.
  5. A manifest is created for each item as it was scanned, weighed, cubed, etc.

In this scenario, the only manual intervention is offloading the product and loading back to the outbound shipping trailer.

Palletized or large / bulk items

  1. Trucks and containers are offloaded with forklifts or pallet jacks
  2. Depending on the operational requirements, each pallet or large item may be scanned manually, then weighed and dimensioned.
  3. Each pallet or large item is then transferred to the proper shipping line.
  4. A manifest is recorded with the receiving data with scan, weight, dim, etc.

Pallet and large item cubing system
Overhead pallet and large item dimensioning system. Freight is scanned, weighed, and cubed as it is received and cross docked to the proper shipping destination.