Asefeh Hasani-Goodarzi, - Department of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box: ۱۱۱۵۵-۴۵۶۳, Tehran, Iran
Reza Tavakoli-Moghaddam
Behnam Vahdani

This paper considers a vehicle routing problem (VRP) with time window and capacity constraints for multiproduct cross-docks. Cross-docking is an approach which means continuous process to the final destination through the cross-dock, without storing products and materials in a distribution center for a long time. The VRP is a set of available vehicles in order to serve a set of retailer demands. The capacity constraint in this horizon arises when each vehicle can carry the limited amount of load at one time. The time constraint is considered when the service at each location can take place only during a given time window. In hard time windows, it is impossible to exceed the limitation of time intervals. In addition, we consider multi-product cross-docks, in which each node or location of demand can request more than one kind of goods or services. Finally, some numerical examples are solved and the related results are illustrated

Vehicle routing problem; Cross-docking; Multi-products; Time windows