Title: An efficient approach to solve order batching, batch sequencing and picker routing problems simultaneously in warehouse operations

Authors: Md. Saiful Islam; Md. Kutub Uddin

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET), Khulna-9203, Bangladesh ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET), Khulna-9203, Bangladesh

Abstract: Order picking is the most time-consuming and laborious part in warehouse operation. An efficient order batching approach may considerably enhance the effectiveness of the order picking process. In this research, a quadratic programming model is developed to solve the order batching, batch sequencing, and picker routing problems jointly. The objective is to minimise the sum of order processing and tardiness costs for a particular set of customer orders. The model is considered as an NP-hard problem. Therefore, as a solution methodology, a genetic algorithm (GA) based meta-heuristic approach is proposed to solve large-scale problems. A greedy routing technique is also adopted in the GA to estimate the optimal picking sequence for each batch. The effectiveness of the suggested meta-heuristic approach is compared with the earliest due date (EDD) order batching method. The experimental results show that the proposed GA-based approach generates promising results in an acceptable amount of computational time.

Keywords: order picking; order batching; greedy routing policy; genetic algorithm; GA; warehouse management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJADS.2025.147256

International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences, 2025 Vol.18 No.4, pp.432 - 455

Received: 04 Feb 2023
Accepted: 18 Jan 2024
Published online: 14 Jul 2025 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article