My PhD Blog

During my research I found an logistic ‘pattern’ called cross-dock. In my first encounter with cross-dock my conscious triggered my mind to recognize the cross-dock structure as a service oriented architecture. Interesting became my experience when I kept the SOA perspective in my mind during the reading of cross dock articles. In some articles I read abouth the application of lean principles on bad performing cross docks (SOA). Let me confront you with my ‘strange’ observations as result of my conscious.

Conscious, what Thomas Nagel calles the existence of “something that it is like” to be something.

What is cross-dock ?
Cross Dock is a process where goods are received at a distribution center and it flows in & out of the facility without being held in inventory. This duration of this activity ranges from minutes to hours, however it is usually completed within 24 hours. The next figure illustrates the pattern of cross-docking, click on the figure to watch a movie abouth cross-docking.  

Archetypes in structure ?
The structure is close to a service oriented architecture (SOA) concept called enterprise service bus (ESB). The ESB routes information packages from clients (applications) to warehouses (databases) or other consumers (users). The miracle starts when you use this perspective and watch the movie. See the goods handled in the cross dock as information packages which are routed in an ESB. This post does not want to defend a thesis whether both are comparable but more interesting is to understand it as an archetype which found in two complete separated worlds. So If one world (in this case logistics) deals for a long time with this archetype, the other world can learn from it. I like to inspire you to read the next article How to be a lean, mean cross-docking machine with the SOA understanding in you’re mind and be astonished like me how easy it is to draw parallels.

A conclusion ?
Both phenomena’s incorporate the same archetype exposed in behaviour and structure. I think we can draw parallels and start to understanding SOA if we study the world of cross-dock.