A facility that sorts and regroups a wide variety of incoming items from different suppliers for outbound delivery to different customers, such as assembly plants, distributors or retailers. A common example of a cross-dock is a facility run by a manufacturer with several plants that wants to gather material from many suppliers in an efficient manner. When a truck with pallets of goods from suppliers arrives at one end of the dock, they are immediately unloaded and taken to different conveyors. There they are loaded onto trucks that travel to the various factories (see illustration). 

A crossdock is not a warehouse because no goods are stored there. Goods are usually loaded from inbound vehicles and moved to lanes for outbound transport in one go. If outbound vehicles leave frequently, it is possible to have the crossdock floor empty every 24 hours.

Below is an example of a crossdock: