Understanding What Cross Docking Is

Unless you've done business in the courier industry yourself

, it is very common to hear couriers and delivery workers talking in industry jargon that might sound like nonsense to you. A term like cross docking when used by someone working for a Jacksonville courier service might not mean anything to you now, but once you learn what cross docking is you'll see that it is a valuable shipping technique that your courier might be using to get your shipments where they need to go faster and more efficiently than they could by using other methods of shipping.

Cross docking is not something that is generally spoken about when you're talking about smaller scale messenger services or parcel carriers. Instead, this is one of those techniques which is more for those companies that are shipping freight and cargo in semis across the country, although the practice is also used by some package carriers who have to deliver goods far outside their home service area.

Cross docking is when goods aren't stored in between transferring them in between vehicles. For example, when a truck is carrying a load of goods that are going to need to be redistributed to several other vehicles further down the shipping line, in other models of shipping those goods would be stored in a terminal waiting until the appropriate vehicles arrived to take them down the next step in their journey. With cross docking though, all vehicle movements will be carefully scheduled so that instead of the goods ever sitting on a warehouse floor they are simply redistributed from one truck into the other trucks and vans that will finish the deliveries, or at least take them the next leg of the journey where they may be subject to more cross docking.

Cross docking has proven to be a very valuable method of shipping goods. The US army realized how much time and money this method of shipping goods could save, and so have adopted cross docking for most of their logistical operations. In addition, retail giant Wal-Mart realized how they could service their massive stores across the country much more effectively by shipping in this manner, and have done so now for many years. If you know that your courier follows cross docking practices, you can be confident that they are making your deliveries as fast as possible and trying to keep costs down while doing so.

by: scott gallagher

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