An estimation distribution algorithm for wave-picking warehouse management

Recently, market has witnessed a tremendous growth in E-commerce sales, which bring tons of opportunities as well as challenges. Warehouses have to handle unique characteristics of customer orders in the era of E-commerce which consists of small order scales, large items count, unexpected irregular...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of intelligent manufacturing 2022-04, Vol.33 (4), p.929-942
Main Authors: Liang, Jingran, Wu, Zhengning, Zhu, Chenye, Zhang, Zhi-Hai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Business and Management
Control
Electronic commerce
Machines
Manufacturing
Mechatronics
Mixed integer
Order picking
Processes
Production
Robotics
Seasonal variations
Warehouses
Warehousing management
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Summary:Recently, market has witnessed a tremendous growth in E-commerce sales, which bring tons of opportunities as well as challenges. Warehouses have to handle unique characteristics of customer orders in the era of E-commerce which consists of small order scales, large items count, unexpected irregular order arrival patterns, seasonality demand peeks, and high service level expectations. Warehouses are adopting wave-picking as an effective policy composed of item-batching, load-assignment and picker-routing problems. In this research, principle combination of load-assignment and picker-routing problems is studied. A mixed integer mathematical model is established based on features of a wave-picking warehouse. In order to conquer the complexity caused by routing decision of the proposed problem, a set of effective modified Estimation Distribution Algorithms is developed. The set of proposed algorithms is proved to have stable gaps (1% on average and maximum less than 2%) compared with Cplex 12.8, while can be solved in much larger scale within quite short time (100 pickers and 350 items in each wave within less than 2 min).
ISSN:0956-5515
1572-8145
DOI:10.1007/s10845-020-01688-6