Storage policies and order picking strategies in U-shaped order-picking systems with a movable base

Christoph H. Glock (1) , Eric H. Grosse (2)

1 Chair of Business Management and Industrial Management
2 Chair of Business Management and Industrial Management

Prior research on storage policies and order picking strategies in order picking systems has concentrated on studying warehouses with parallel shelves that are separated by horizontal and/or vertical aisles. This paper analyses a special case of an order picking system, where the warehouse is divided into zones with shelves being arranged in the shape of a U in each of the zones. The paper assumes that the shelves of the order picking system are made up of two rows of stillages that can be flexibly exchanged and that the base of the order picking process can be moved within the aisle prior to the beginning of the order picking process. We describe the order picking system in a formal model and propose different storage location assignment policies whose efficiency is compared in a numerical study. The paper pays special attention to the practical applicability of the model and proposes heuristics that can be easily implemented in practice.

Mots clés: Physical Sciences

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Christoph H. Glock, Eric H. Grosse. Storage policies and order picking strategies in U-shaped order-picking systems with a movable base. International Journal of Production Research, 2011, pp.1. ⟨10.1080/00207543.2011.588621⟩. ⟨hal-00719067⟩