Correlated Storage Assignment and Iso-Time Mapping Adopting Tri-Later Stackers. A Case Study from Tile Industry

The process of picking products from storage locations to fill customer orders is a very critical and labour-intensive logistic activity, especially in the presence of many orders made of a few orderliness. The storage strategy is one of the main factors affecting the order picking system performance. Object of this chapter is the development and application of an original and systematic procedure for the minimisation of the variable travelling cost in a picker-to-part high-level order picking system with tri-lateral stackers. This procedure takes inspiration from a correlated storage assignment strategy developed and applied by the authors, and is based on the introduction of similarity indices, as measures of correlation between products, the application of hierarchical clustering algorithms and positioning rules. The authors propose different storage allocation/positioning rules supported by an iso-time mapping of the storage area. A case study from tile industry is illustrated and the results of a what-if analysis are discussed.