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Keywords Supply chain management, Warehousing, Order picking, Heuristics
Abstract In today's competitive global economy, the focus is on faster delivery of small more frequent orders of inventory at a lower total cost. This often precludes the use of full pallet picking in warehouses so firms commonly use manual picking of cases and broken-cases. Many firms increase the efficiency of their warehouses by using zone picking. Zone picking requires that a worker only pick those stock-keeping units (SKUs) stored within their picking zone. In this paper we examine the configuration or shape of these picking zones by simulating a bin-shelving warehouse to measure picker travel where SKUs are assigned storage locations either using random or volume-based storage. The results show that the size or storage capacity of the zone, the number of items on the pick list, and the storage policy have a significant effect on picking zone configuration. In addition, we found that the absence of a back cross aisle also affected picking zone configuration. These results offer solutions to managers looking to implement improvements in distribution center operations.
Introduction
It is essential for almost all companies to shorten their throughput times in the supply chain. Short throughput and delivery times can serve as a competitive weapon since swift responses to changes in consumer demand are expected. Warehouses form an important link in the supply chain, where products can be temporarily stored and customer orders can be filled by retrieving products from storage. Warehousing generally requires a considerable amount of handling time. Decreasing the order throughput times in warehouses is therefore crucial, yet difficult to achieve.
One of the difficulties in speeding up the warehouse operation is the dramatic increase in product proliferation. An increasing number of products have to be stored, requiring an increasing amount of floor space, which in turn results in an increase in processing times per order. Furthermore, the amount of orders tends to increase and simultaneously the size of each order decreases. Smaller orders and an increased frequency of ordering have lead to an increase in the work contents of order picking: less full pallets can be picked and more single item picks are necessary.
The process of retrieving stock-keeping units (SKUs) from specified storage locations to fulfill...