Title: Integrative conceptual framework to support decisions on warehousing operations in forward and reverse flow

Authors: Andréa Raffaella Avelar Pimentel Vila Nova; Marcele Elisa Fontana

Addresses: Autarquia Educacional de Belo Jardim, Belo Jardim, PE, 55150-000, Brazil ' Decisões Estratégicas em Produção e Logística (DEPLog), Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Campus do Agreste (CAA), Caruaru, PE, Brazil

Abstract: Warehouse has assumed a prominent position in the supply chains (SCs), since the operations performed in these facilities directly influence all SC. In addition, organisations motivated by economic, environmental and legislative issues have begun to worry about the impact from their processes and products. This has encouraged organisations to use their storage facilities to store both forward and reverse flow materials. However, managing hybrid warehouse is complex due to the difficult in handling the material from both flows, and the need to reconfigure the warehouse system. Therefore, this paper proposed an integrative conceptual framework that assists in the strategic decision making regarding raw material warehouse design and operations in hybrid facility. The main contribution of this work is the systematisation and simplification of the strategic decision making process about warehouse design and operations in bidirectional flow environment, allowing optimising space, facilitating flow and minimising storage cost.

Keywords: warehouse; hybrid facility; design; operation system.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2022.123520

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2022 Vol.42 No.1, pp.53 - 74

Received: 10 Sep 2019
Accepted: 14 Jan 2020
Published online: 27 Jun 2022 *

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