Improved efficiency of warehouse picking by co-optimization of order batching and storage location assignment

Abstract

Stock-type warehouses at production sites and supply chains face a demand for quick and timely delivery of materials and products. However, the mainstream method of delivery work is still manual order picking and improving the work efficiency is a crucial issue to achieve smart logistics and/or factory. Therefore, in this study, we propose an optimization method using order batching (OB) for multi-order picking. In addition, a method is also proposed to optimize storage location assignment (SLA) to reduce the travel path of pickers. In this case, the number of location pairs to change is limited according to actual operations. Furthermore, numerical experiments validate the co-optimization method for coupling OB and SLA. As the knowledge from the numerical experiments, the co-optimization coupled by OB and SLA shows that the control and execution of the local optimization techniques according to the order characteristics is efficient and effective.