Order picking systems in spare parts management. A case study from automotive industry

Order Picking Systems (OPS) are probably the most critical logistic nodes throughout the supply chain since they contribute to fulfil the demand and to tackle criticalities as seasonality and uncertainty. The performances of those systems depend on the demand configuration, but most of all, on structural design settings, as well as the availability of materials in the right location (i.e. storage assignment issue), in the right quantity (i.e. storage allocation issue) and at the right time. The proposed manuscript presents an overview of a real case study application treated and implemented through an original and effective supporting design systematic procedure managing to combine different decision steps and leverages, as structural parameters, goods flow, and the so-called storage allocation and storage assignment with the aim to suggest the best system configuration. The results of a multi scenario what-if analysis are illustrated in detail as well as considerations about the importance of a comparative and integrated approach for the warehouse design and management.