Storage assignment problem with travel distance and blocking considerations for a picker-to-part order picking system

Authors:
Jason Chao-Hsien Pan;Po-Hsun Shih;Ming-Hung Wu
Affiliations:
Department of Business Administration, Takming University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, No. 56 Huanshan Road, Section 1, Taipei 11451, Taiwan, ROC;Department of Information Management, Vanung University, No.1 Van-Nung Road, Chung-Li, Tao-Yuan 320, Taiwan, ROC;Department of Business Administration, Takming University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, No. 56 Huanshan Road, Section 1, Taipei 11451, Taiwan, ROC
Venue:
Computers and Industrial Engineering
Year:
2012

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Abstract

Order picking is a key operation in managing a warehouse efficiently. Most previous studies on picking only considered single-picker operation; however, many pickers frequently work concurrently in the same region. Since congestion may occur in such a multi-picker system, waiting time must be taken into account together with travel time and distance when evaluating the efficiency of picking operations. The picking model under investigation can be formulated as a queueing network, and a heuristic storage assignment policy that considers both the travel time and the waiting time simultaneously by minimizing the average order fulfillment time is developed in the paper. An approximation method and a simulation model using eM-plant software are presented to implement the proposed heuristic algorithm and to compare the mean travel time for different storage assignment polices as well. The results indicate that the proposed heuristic policy outperforms existing storage assignment policies in a multi-picker warehouse environment.