Choosing a suitable storage assignment strategy is crucial for the efficiency of a warehouse. To complicate the matter, initially assigned storage locations might become sub-optimal over time, due to seasonal fluctuations in demand, short product life cycles or high inventory levels. Fragmented storage is a particular issue in order picking environments, where the optimal storage location of a product is not only dependent on its turn-over rate but also on the storage locations of items that frequently occur in the same picking job. In practice, operations managers are forced to periodically reorganize the warehouse to keep it operating efficiently. This process is generally done manually without any decision-support tool. In this paper we introduce an optimization approach that automatically reorganizes item locations.
Zeitraum
4 Dez. 2010
Ereignistitel
1st Workshop on Young Academics' Management Science (YAMS)