A RFID Based Solution for Managing the Order-Picking Operation in Warehouse

Abstract

As an essential component in the supply chain, warehouse links the production in the upstream and distribution in the downstream. The efficiency of the whole supply chain is significantly affected by the performance of warehouse operations. The order picking process has been considered as the most time consuming and costly warehouse operations in warehouse management. This paper proposes a RFID based solution for managing the order picking operation in the warehouse. The solution first calculates the exact locations of forklifts tagged with RFID by means of k-nearest neighbor method. Then an integer-linear mathematical programming model is constructed to formulate the shortest travel distance of forklifts. The proposed solution is tested in simulations. The result demonstrates that our method is able to generate the optimum pick-up sequence for the appropriate forklift. In doing this the objective of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of order picking operations is achieved.