forklift between strip and load doors. Assigning high volume doors closer to each other is expected to decrease transportation time by shortening the distance a pallet needs to travel from its strip door to its load door. The alternative layout decreased transportation time by
12 percent and average forklift utilization by 10 percent. The decrease in transportation time allows a larger number of forklifts to be available, and therefore, decreases the time a pallet waits for a forklift. The decrease in forklift utilization indicates that same level of service can be achieved using fewer resources. The queue time is the total time that a pallet waits at strip doors for a forklift and at the load doors for a departing truck, which is decreased by 13 percent. The terminal time is the time a pallet spends in the terminal from the time it arrives at a strip door until it leaves the terminal for its destination. The alternative layout compared with the existing layout decreased total terminal time by
13 percent. The average time a package spends in a terminal is the single most important measure of performance for the operations within an LTL terminal.