AN OPTIMAL STORAGE ASSIGNMENT FOR AUTOMATED ROTATING CAROUSELS

Automated rotating carousels (ARCs) are increasingly used as building blocks for material storage and control systems in factories to provid e easy and quick access to materials. This technical note introduces a simple and robust storage assignment policy that minimizes the expect ed turnaround time for accessing an item in an automated rotating caro usel. The policy is shown to be optimal for a class of dwell point str ategies.