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The Rearrangement of Items in a Warehouse

Author

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  • Nicos Christofides

    (Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, England)

  • I. Colloff

    (Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, England)

Abstract

This paper is concerned with finding the optimal way of rearranging items in a warehouse from their initial positions to their desired final locations. Such a rearrangement may become necessary because of changes in the relative demand for each item, with the result that what were once fast-moving items at the front end of the warehouse, are now only slow-moving ones that must be moved towards the “rear.” Although the problem, as treated in this paper, is addressed to the rearrangement of items in a warehouse, many other applications come immediately to mind, such as the reorganization of the layout of open-plan offices and factories. The paper gives a two-stage algorithm that produces the sequence of item movements necessary to achieve the desired rearrangement and incur the minimum cost (or time) spent in the rearranging process; the result is optimal in the restricted case where the rearrangement must be done in a number of cycles each one being of a short time duration (the case, for example, if the warehouse were to remain operative during the rearrangement).

Suggested Citation

  • Nicos Christofides & I. Colloff, 1973. "The Rearrangement of Items in a Warehouse," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 577-589, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:21:y:1973:i:2:p:577-589
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.21.2.577
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Pazour, Jennifer A. & Carlo, Héctor J., 2015. "Warehouse reshuffling: Insights and optimization," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 207-226.
    2. Niraj Ramesh Dayama & Andreas Ernst & Mohan Krishnamoorthy & Vishnu Narayanan & Narayan Rangaraj, 2017. "New models and algorithms for the container stack rearrangement problem by yard cranes in maritime ports," EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 6(4), pages 307-348, December.
    3. Buckow, Jan-Niklas & Knust, Sigrid, 2023. "The warehouse reshuffling problem with swap moves," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    4. David Winkelmann & Frederik Tolkmitt & Matthias Ulrich & Michael Romer, 2022. "Integrated storage assignment for an e-grocery fulfilment centre: Accounting for day-of-week demand patterns," Papers 2209.03998, arXiv.org, revised May 2023.
    5. 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).
    6. Mohammed Alnahhal & Bashir Salah & Rafiq Ahmad, 2022. "Increasing Throughput in Warehouses: The Effect of Storage Reallocation and the Location of Input/Output Station," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-16, April.

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