Blue Ridge Logistics Mid America Hub offers a full range of services, including cross-docking services, to improve your business’s supply chain efficiency and performance. Based in Iowa, our Mid-America Hub provides full-service logistics services to companies all over Mid-America. However, most clients are located in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.
In order to best streamline inbound and outbound shipments, Blue Ridge Logistics now offers continuous cross-docking for all of Mid-America. Cross-docking op
erations limit material handling, lowering labor and storage costs while speeding up the shipping process, ultimately increasing customer satisfaction.
Cross Docking: Defined
Cross-docking is a logistics management practice that involves unloading incoming delivery trucks and loading those items directly onto outbound vehicles. Furthermore, this process cuts out traditional warehousing and streamlines both inventory handling and inventory management.
This supply chain method requires a cross-docking terminal and warehouse, which not all logistics companies have. However, Blue Ridge Logistics has all of the 3pl and warehousing needs and capabilities to provide this service to you.
To best optimize the supply chain for your business, here are some of the top benefits of our cross-docking service:
Cost Savings
The most obvious perk of cross-docking services is the minimization, sometimes even elimination, of warehousing costs. When it comes to cross-docking, you no longer need to store products, which is why supply chain managers like it so much.
When you store products for long periods, you not only incur the additional cost of storage, but you also increase the risk of the merchandise being damaged. Cross-docking eliminates that cost since we are unloading the items from incoming transport directly onto the outbound truck, therefore nixing the need for warehousing.
Time Efficiency
Another advantage of cross-docking is its time-saving abilities. When items are coming from the distribution center, cross-docking not only reduces, or sometimes even eliminates, storage time in the warehouse but also reduces transportation time and lead times.
When items are unloaded from the distribution center, they are loaded onto multiple, but different, outbound trucks at the same time, which enables workers to place items going to the same destination on the same trucks. This consolidates the number of “last-mile” vehicles needed to deliver the goods to the consumer, which will ultimately reduce transportation costs and shipping time.
Streamlined Supply Chain Management
While it may seem simple at first glance, there are a wide variety of different types of cross-docking. For example, manufacturing cross-docking, distributor cross-docking, transportation cross-docking, retail cross-docking, and opportunistic cross-docking are various methods of our cross-docking services that Blue Ridge Logistics is able to provide you.
Based on your business needs, we will select the method that best optimizes your supply chain needs and implement it for you. Furthermore, this will streamline your fulfillment process, speeding up your distribution and shipping time.
Higher Customer Satisfaction:
The increased shipping speed that cross-docking enables will also lead to higher customer satisfaction, which is an overall win-win for your company. In addition, by reducing the amount of “last mile” vehicles you use, your company is also reducing its carbon emissions output, which customers love to see companies care about.
Trusted since 2005, Blue Ridge Logistics has been providing a full range of supply chain and 3PL services to hundreds of customers. So whether you are a mom-and-pop shop or a Fortune 500 company, Blue Ridge is here to meet all your logistical needs.
If you want to partner with us, fill out our online contact form here or call (888) 513-6818. We look forward to working with you and customizing your logistics experience to your individual needs.
