A geometric design of zone-picking in a distribution warehouse

Abstract

In this study, we considered a regular logistic warehouse into various geometric zone-picking types. Eight zone planning methods, six similarity coefficients, two order-batching methods and one clustering algorithm are used to improve the warehouse system. In all, there are 96 (8×6×2 ×1) combinations of these methods. Each combination is tested with thirty randomly generated test problems. The total order-picking travel distances are collected for performance evaluation. Furthermore, we solved the storage-location assignment problem of each test problem by dividing the logistic warehouse into various zone types, so that we can see how much improvement could be achieved by converting a regular warehouse into different geometric zone-picking warehouses. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.