A GENERALIZED DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS MODEL FOR END-OF-AISLE ORDER-PICKING SYSTEMS

In this paper we present an analytical design algorithm to determine t he near-minimum number of pickers required in an end-of-aisle order-pi cking operation based on a miniload automated storage/retrieval system . The algorithm is based on an approximate analytical model we develop ed to estimate the expected picker utilization (and the storage/retrie val machine utilization) for general system configurations with two or more pick positions per aisle and/or two or more aisles per picker. F or systems with two pick positions, we also investigate the possibilit y of improving the picker utilization by sequencing container retrieva ls within each order.