Title: Order picking process at warehouses

Authors: Aurelija Burinskiene

Addresses: Faculty of Business Management, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, LT-10223, Sauletekio 11, Vilnius, Lithuania

Abstract: Order picking process is the most laborious activity in warehouse. The target of this paper is to identify the opportunities how to reduce order picker|s travel distance in Very Narrow Aisle (VNA) shelf area warehouse. In pursuance of the targets of this paper, various different aspects are taken into account herein as follows: size of warehouse, storage, layout, routing. For optimisation of order picking process, the paper suggests some new approaches: volume-based storage method |across-floors|; usage of correlation between order picking efficiency and stock accuracy. Research provided herein defines combinations of best individually applied strategies resulting in minimising travel distance.

Keywords: order picking optimisation; simulation models; warehouses; very narrow aisles; VNA; volume-based storage; across-floors; stock accuracy; operational efficiency; travel distances; routing; warehouse layout; labour intensivity; logistics systems; logistics management; R&D; research and development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2010.030958

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2010 Vol.6 No.2, pp.162 - 178

Published online: 14 Jan 2010 *

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