Improving Order-picking Operations with Precedence Constraints through Efficient Storage Location Assignment Evidence from a Retail Company

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Maria A. M. Trindade
Paulo S. A. Sousa
Maria R. A. Moreira

Abstract

This paper is inspired by a manual picking retail company where shape and weight constraints affect the order-picking process. We proposed an alternative clustering similarity index that considers the similarity, the weight and the shape of products. This similarity index was further incorporated in a storage allocation heuristic procedure to set the location of the products. We test the procedure in a retail company that supplies over 191 stores, in Northern Portugal. When comparing the strategy currently used in the company with this procedure, we found out that our approach enabled a reduction of up to 40% on the picking distance; a percentage of improvement that is 32% higher than the one achieved by applying the Jaccard index, a similarity index commonly used in the literature. This allows warehouses to save time and work faster.

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Author Biographies

Maria A. M. Trindade, University of Porto; Católica Porto Business School

Faculty of Economics

University of Porto

Rua Dr. Roberto Frias

4200-464 PORTO

Portugal

 

Católica Porto Business School

Universidade Católica

Rua de Diogo Botelho

4169-005 PORTO

Portugal

Paulo S. A. Sousa, University of Porto

Faculty of Economics

University of Porto

Rua Dr. Roberto Frias

4200-464 PORTO

Portugal

Maria R. A. Moreira, University of Porto; INESC TEC-Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science

Faculty of Economics

University of Porto

Rua Dr. Roberto Frias

4200-464 PORTO

Portugal

 

 

INESC TEC-Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science

Faculty of Engineering campus

Rua Dr. Roberto Frias

Building I

4200-465 PORTO

Portugal