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Storage assignment for newly arrived items in forward picking areas with limited open locations

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  • Guo, Xiaolong
  • Chen, Ran
  • Du, Shaofu
  • Yu, Yugang

Abstract

In e-commerce warehouses, replenishment operations involve the transportation of ordered items from reserve areas to forward picking areas. In this paper, we study where to store these items (called newly arrived items) in open storage locations in forward picking areas prior to picking to minimize the total travel distance for given picking orders. The locations occupied by items previously stored in the forward area are not available. The problem is formulated as an integer program and proved to be NP-hard. We propose a two-stage decomposition algorithm, showing that it provides high-quality solutions quickly. Compared with methods proposed in the literature and used in practice, the travel distance is substantially reduced. Also, our numerical study shows that considering the constraint that items have previously been stored, which has often been ignored in previous research, can improve the picking performance by more than 5%. We apply our proposed algorithm to real data from a Chinese 3PL retailer to show that it significantly outperforms the policy the company currently uses.

Suggested Citation

  • Guo, Xiaolong & Chen, Ran & Du, Shaofu & Yu, Yugang, 2021. "Storage assignment for newly arrived items in forward picking areas with limited open locations," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transe:v:151:y:2021:i:c:s1366554521001289
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tre.2021.102359
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Chen, Ran & Yang, Jingjing & Yu, Yugang & Guo, Xiaolong, 2023. "Retrieval request scheduling in a shuttle-based storage and retrieval system with two lifts," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    3. Lam, H.Y. & Ho, G.T.S. & Mo, Daniel Y. & Tang, Valerie, 2023. "Responsive pick face replenishment strategy for stock allocation to fulfil e-commerce order," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    4. Jonas F. Leon & Yuda Li & Mohammad Peyman & Laura Calvet & Angel A. Juan, 2023. "A Discrete-Event Simheuristic for Solving a Realistic Storage Location Assignment Problem," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-24, March.
    5. Tutam, Mahmut & De Koster, René, 2024. "To walk or not to walk? Designing intelligent order picking warehouses with collaborative robots," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).

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