Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

12-2019

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

M. Eng.

Department

Industrial Engineering

Committee Chair

Gue, Kevin R.

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Usher, John

Committee Member

Usher, John

Committee Member

Biro, Csaba

Author's Keywords

Aisle Design; Unit-Load; Order-Picking; Warehouse; Replenishment; Layout Optimization

Abstract

The warehouse design problem has been addressed in the last decade with fewer constraints than ever before. Between optimization for unit load and order picking warehouses, the former has had extensively more research performed. Unit load optimization efforts have promised labor savings of 20-22%. Of the existing research for order-picking warehouses, only small improvements of less than 4% have been claimed. We propose the design optimization for order-picking warehouses requires consideration for inherently incurred unit load operations from pallet inbound activities, as well as forward-pick area replenishment. We perform experiments comparing optimization of aisle design using order picking data with and without the inclusion of unit load operations. While no great improvements over current designs are found with our experiments, we develop our theory for application. Additionally, we explore the relationship of travel distance reduction between unit load and order picking operations

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